VOLGA The Sioux Valley girls basketball team improved to 10-4 on Monday night as the Cossacks blew out McCook Central/Montrose 60-31 at the Cossack Center.
Sioux Valley head coach Jamie Granum has been preaching about having better starts.The Cossacks did that Monday night as they led 23-11 at the end of the first quarter.
Weve just been really talking about as a team, how can we start faster? A lot of times that comes back to your offense when you think about starting faster. I reversed it a little bit and talked about defensively, can we come out with a better start. Our defense is a little bit unique, and we thought that we could get after their guards, and we did, Granum said.
It was the fourth game in five days for the Cossacks as they played in the Big East Conference Tournament over the weekend. The win tonight made them 3-1 in this stretch with the lone loss coming to No. 2 ranked Flandreau in the BEC championship game on Saturday. Granum said he was proud of his team for bouncing back after the championship loss and having good effort.
It was a bounce back, and we realized Saturday we were playing one of the best teams in the state. So, we had that perspective. It was probably our most complete game effort wise. I thought the energy and effort was really good, Granum said.
Sioux Valley and MCM (5-9) went back-and-forth in the second quarter and the Cossacks took a 32-18 lead into halftime. They then extended the lead to 43-24 at the end of the third and that allowed them to cruise to their 10th victory of the season in the fourth quarter.
Sioux Valley shot 39% from the field for the game but the Cossacks did a lot of damage at the 3-point line as they were 9-of-23 from beyond the arc. MCM shot 26.2% from the field and was 4-of-13 from three.
Granum said he thought the Cossacks did a good job of handling MCMs zone defense throughout the night.
They came out in a triangle and two, and they were married to that. We were prepared for that. We were prepared and were a tough team to do that against because we have so many people that can score. So, I think [MCMs zone] defense kind of assisted that tonight, Granum said.
Sioux Valley had balanced scoring on Monday night. Isabelle Bloker led the Cossacks with 14 points. Liberty Trygstad had 12 points. Kailey Cradduck had 11 points and seven rebounds. Talya Vincent had nine points and Keyra Kruse had eight points and six rebounds.
MCM was led by Cami McGuire who had eight points. Mya Morrison had seven points.
The Cossacks had 31 rebounds and the Fighting Cougars had 27. Sioux Valley had 10 turnovers and MCM had 23. The Cossacks were 5-of-8 at the free throw line and the Fighting Cougars were 5-of-12 at the charity stripe.
Sioux Valley will have a rematch against Flandreau on Friday in Flandreau at 7 p.m. The Fliers won on Saturday 55-29 and Granum said his team will need to make more shots if they want to give the Fliers more of a game on Friday.
When you get beat by 30, I dont know if theres one or two adjustments that will make up a 30-point deficit, Granum said. Obviously, we have to play better offensively. Thats a defense thats giving up 26 points per game for a reason. They have college athletes throughout their starting lineup. They have a lot of length, experience and size.
But you know, you go back to our game and watch it on film and we got some good looks in that game. Its one of those games where were going to have to make shots. We turned it over a dozen times, so I was happy with that with their pressure. Were looking forward to Friday night. We want to play the best teams in the state and Flandreau is the best team in the state.
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