Wauneta-Palisade splits home, away games

Nothing came easy for the Wauneta-Palisade girls basketball team last week.
The Broncos claimed a home win over Hitchcock County Friday, but got punched in the mouth at Southwest Saturday.
With four players scoring in the first quarter, WP held a 10-7 lead going into the second.
The Falcons (2-8) hit four 3s in the second quarter and, despite 11 points by Peyton Cox, left WP trailing 27-28 at halftime.
GraCee Goings, McKenna Doetker and Cox each scored at least four points in the third quarter to put the Broncos back in front.
Leading 43-37 going into the fourth quarter, poor shooting at the charity stripe nearly cost WP the game. The Broncos only made 5-18 free throws in the fourth, but still hung on for a 56-53 win.
Head Coach Matt Cox said WP played a really competitive game, the only thing they were really bad at was free throws.
WP made 9-26 free throws in the game.
“We played good defense, full and half court, and ran our transition and half court offenses really well. Hitchcock County shot really well and we missed a lot,” Cox said.
P. Cox had a huge night with 24 points and 20 rebounds. GraCee Goings scored nine points and Chloe Stehno had nine rebounds.
Cox knew heading into Saturday night’s contest that Southwest (5-5) on the road would be a huge challenge, hopefully he was hopeful WP would compete better with the Roughriders than it did the first time at the Cattle Trail Tournament.
The Broncos struggled to find an offensive groove in the game. WP made three 2-pointers and two 3s in the first half. Paired with 4-9 free throw shooting, the Broncos found themselves in a 16-27 halftime hole.
WP made three shots from the floor in the third quarter, but missed more opportunities from the charity stripe, once again making 4-9 in the third quarter.
The Broncos closed out the game without a field goal in the fourth quarter for a 28-64 loss.
Cox said WP struggled offensively all night long.
“We’ve forgotten about the mid-range jumper. We’ve been trying to shoot 3s or layups and we’ve got to find some points from somewhere in between,” he said, but added his team handled Southwest’s pressure really well. They still had some unforced turnovers, he said, by trying to do too much instead of taking what SW gave them.
P. Cox and Stehno had eight and seven rebounds, respectively.
Up next
Cox said, with another game against a C2 opponent on the road this week, WP will be tested and hopefully preform better than last week.
The Broncos will play Perkins County (6-3) in Grant Friday then host Garden County (4-3) Saturday.
WP’s only other game before the RPAC tournament begins will be Paxton (6-2) Jan. 19.