PAXTON – The Paxton-Buckley-Loda varsity girls basketball team lost 35-30 to Westville on Thursday.
“It was a disappointing loss,” PBL head coach Jeff Sinn said. “I’m not happy with our girls’ effort. Not taking anything away from Westville.”
The loss came one day after a 36-31 defeat to Bismarck-Henning-Rossville-Alvin and less than a week after a 46-44 win over Peoria Christian.
“We thought we were on track getting something done, and then we laid an egg like that,” Sinn said.
Both teams were held scoreless through the first 4 ½ minutes of Thursday’s game until Emmy Bagwell scored on an offensive-rebound putback to give PBL a 2-0 lead. A couple of baskets by Gwen Bennett gave Westville (2-5) a 4-2 lead as the first quarter came to an end.
After a 3-pointer by Hallee Johnson gave PBL (1-6) a 5-4 lead, Chloe Cox made a go-ahead trey and Bennett added another basket to give the Tigers a 9-5 lead.
A basket by McCoy and a free throw by Johnson cut PBL’s deficit to 9-8 before Bennett stole the ball and converted a three-point play via a fastbreak layup to extend Westville’s lead to 12-8 with 4:18 left in the second quarter.
A basket by Taryn Boland made it 14-8 before Tessa Boehme scored while drawing foul with 2:51 left in the second quarter to make it 14-10.
From there, three straight turnovers helped lead to Westville scoring six straight points as three straight baskets by Bennett, including a layup off a steal, extended the Tigers’ lead to 20-10 with 1:26 left in the second quarter.
“That’s not good basketball. That’s not playing with our energy, execution and toughness. There was none of that tonight,” Sinn said. “It’s disappointing. We’ll come back to practice and try to fix those things, but to come out like that after we’ve been building to doing some good things, that’s not acceptable.”
Baskets by Johnson and Kylie Rust cut PBL’s deficit to 20-14 before Layla Walblay made two free throws to extend Westville’s lead to 22-14 by halftime.
McCoy and Bennett exchanged two-point baskets before Olivia Rehg and Bennett exchanged treys to make it 27-19. Bennett made a two-point basket before Rust tallied a bucket to make it 29-21 as the third quarter came to end.
McCoy stole the ball and scored on a layup before a basket by Isabella Dodson made it 31-23. A two-point basket and a 3-pointer by Johnson cut PBL’s deficit to 31-28 with less than five minutes left in the contest.
After Rust committed her fourth personal foul, Madison Duke drained a 3-pointer to make it 34-28.
Rehg scored on a putback to make it 34-30 with 1:05 left in the contest. After the two teams traded missed shots, Bennett made a free throw with 18.5 seconds remaining to make it 35-30.
Junior varsity
The Paxton-Buckley-Loda junior varsity girls basketball team won 17-12 over Westville in a 16-minute contest on Thursday.
Tinley Boehme scored nine points while Rylie Masco had five points and Ella Strebeck had three points.
VARSITY
Westville 35, PBL 30
WEST 4 18 7 6 — 35
PBL 2 14 7 9 — 30
Westville (2-5)
Layla Walblay 0-2-2, Makenzie Russell 0-0-0, Taryn Boland 1-0-2, Isabella Dodson 1-0-2, Gewn Bennett 10-2-23, Chloe Cox 1-0-3, Madison Duke 1-0-3. Totals 14-4-35.
PBL (1-6)
Audrey McCoy 3-0-6, Olivia Rehg 2-0-5, Emmy Bagwell 1-0-2, Tinley Boehme 0-0-0, Kylie Rust 2-0-4, Mikayla Ware 0-0-0, Hallee Johnson 4-1-11, Taylor Cole 0-0-0, Tessa Boehme 1-0-2. Totals 13-1-30.
3-pointers – Westville 3 (Bennett, Cox, Duke). PBL 3 (Johnson 2, Rehg).
JUNIOR VARSITY
PBL 17, Westville 12
WEST 2 2 3 5 — 12
PBL 7 5 2 3 — 17
Westville
Layla Walblay 1-0-2, Mackenzie Russell 1-3-5, Justus Walls 0-0-0, Sophie Cooley 0-0-0, Sophia Bays 0-0-0, Madison Sapp 1-1-3, Isabella Dodson 0-0-0, Chloe Cox 0-2-2. Totals 3-6-12.
PBL
Ella Strebeck 1-1-3, Tinley Boehme 3-0-9, Rylie Masco 2-1-5, Reese Sadlek 0-0-0, Ainsley Niewold 0-0-0, Nevaeh Harding 0-0-0, Kayleigh Harper 0-0-0. Totals 6-2-17.
3-pointers — PBL 3 (Boehme 3).