Cheyenne East senior Boden Liljedahl (23) drives to the basket under pressure from Cheyenne South senior Ebony Gunn (13) during a girls basketball game at South High School in Cheyenne on Friday, Jan. 20, 2023.
Cheyenne East senior Boden Liljedahl (23) drives to the basket under pressure from Cheyenne South senior Ebony Gunn (13) during a girls basketball game at South High School in Cheyenne on Friday, Jan. 20, 2023.
CHEYENNE — Cheyenne East is a team known throughout the state for its staunch defensive play. On Friday night, Cheyenne South learned that lesson out the hard way during a 59-26 home loss.
“They are a phenomenal team, no matter what (defensive) scheme they are running,” South coach Brodie Epler said. “It doesn’t really matter. They are phenomenal defensively, both individually and as a team.”
In Thursday night’s contest against Cheyenne Central, South had a hard time getting going. It was plagued by turnovers and a heavy pressure system, which forced them to fall behind by 27 points in the first quarter.
On Friday, South had the opposite effect. Thanks to some good transition offense, Mona Montgomery, Jordynn Brennan and Amya Smith were able to get easy looks at the rim, and scored the Bison’s first seven points of the contest.
East, meanwhile, struggled to get out of its own way on the offensive end. The Thunderbirds made just one of its first 15 shots, with the lone basket coming off a 3-pointer by senior Izzy DeLong.
When the latter half of the first quarter came around, South’s hot start fizzled out. Two big 3s by East senior Boden Liljedahl sparked a 10-0 run to close out the first quarter with a 13-7 lead.
South’s offense went completely cold from the field following the halfway mark of the quarter, which carried over into the second.
It had some opportunities in the second frame, but its shots went wide, rimmed out or just flat out missed.
When they weren’t getting shots, they were being hounded by East’s defenders.
DeLong and Bradie Schlabs helped the T-Birds put up 19 second quarter points. East’s offense closed out the first half on a 29-0 run that went all the way back to the midway point of the first quarter.
But where both DeLong and Schlabs shined was on the defensive end. The two spent most of the second quarter harassing South’s ball-handlers, and forced a majority of the turnovers for East.
“We work really hard in practice (on our defense),” DeLong said. “It just makes the game that much easier.”
Entering the second half, Kaelin VanTassell finally put an end to the T-Birds’ long run on a layup 20 seconds into the third quarter. But East continued to pour it on thanks to big quarters from Elysiana Fonseca and Cashlynn Haws. The pair used their size down low to combine for 16 of the team’s 22 points in the third frame.
All of the points scored from Fonseca and Haws came from inside the paint.
“I didn’t think we were seeing much of that earlier (in the first half),” East coach Eric Westling said. “That comes from a team that prides itself on shooting. But we came out of the halftime understanding that we also have some pretty good post play.”
VanTassell and Smith scored all 10 points for South in the third quarter, but the Bison still trailed 54-17 heading into the fourth.
After dropping its 48-game winning streak last week in Scottsbluff, Nebraska, Westling said he needed to see his team respond. After picking up a gritty win over Laramie on Thursday and a dominating win Friday, Westling believes the team is starting to get back to where he feels the team is.
“It definitely is (the response I wanted to see),” Westling said. “We just have to keep grinding, because we are not where we want to be yet.”
Despite the loss, Epler was happy with the way the team started. The trick for his team now will be in using the lessons from that start and building on it for the future.
“That first seven minutes was probably the best we have played all season,” Epler said. “…We are going to show them the positives from that stretch on film. Hopefully that positive praise leads to them wanting to do more of those things.”
EAST 59, SOUTH 26
Cheyenne East...... 13 19 22 5 — 59
Cheyenne South...... 7 0 10 9 — 26
Cheyenne East: DeLong 8, G. Schlabs 10, Cassat 0, E. Fonseca 11, Liljedahl 12, Haws 7, Brown 5, Hall 4, Perea 2.
Cheyenne South: Quist 0, M. Montgomery 2, Brennan 6, C. Ward 3, Gunn 0, Smith 7, Williams 2, T. Montgomery 0, K. VanTassell 6, Garcia 0, Morales-Simetal 0.
Matt Atencio covers Laramie County prep sports for WyoSports. He can be reached at matencio@wyosports.net. Follow him on Twitter at @MattAtencio5.
