Katie Wiegert missed her first three shots in Saturday’s girls basketball game against Bayfield High School in Durango.
Durango High School assistant coach Orlando Griego told her to keep shooting.
Wiegert, a senior for the Demons, kept on letting it fly in leading DHS to a 56-31 win over the Wolverines.
She finished with 19 points on 5-of-16 shooting with three 3-pointers.
“I’m a shooting guard, so if he tells me to shoot, I’m going to shoot,” said Wiegert, daughter of Coby and Jill Wiegert. “If you hit one, you’re in rhythm. I wasn’t in rhythm until the second quarter, third quarter. Him (Griego) telling me to keep shooting just gave me confidence.”
Wiegert even kept pace with BHS (0-1) on her own in the first half, scoring eight points to the Wolverines’ eight. DHS (2-0) led 32-8 at halftime.
Sophomore point guard Katrina Chandler also reached double-digits with 10 points and had six rebounds and four steals.
Once the Demons started scoring, they settled into a game-long full-court press that BHS struggled to handle.
The Wolverines regularly turned the ball over, and DHS made 14 steals.
“I think we’re still working on our press-breaker. I thought they looked better as they figured it out,” BHS head coach Bri Simbeck said. “But I don’t think that was what was keeping us out of the game. I didn’t think our defense was very good in the first half. We let them get too many open looks at the basket.”
The Demons ended the first half on a 22-2 run powered by their full court pressure.
BHS didn’t make a field goal in the second quarter, scoring on a free throw by Jade Sanders.
“Our defensive intensity, for one, picked up. We got a couple easy baskets, and we hit some shots. That kind of gave us energy to keep the defensive intensity going,” said DHS head coach Tim Fitzpatrick. “The first quarter and a half, we didn’t shoot the ball very well, and that’s kind of frustrating for kids when they’re not scoring to buy in and play tough defense. That was really the difference. We scored some baskets, and that enabled our defense to get turned up.”
Senior Jessie Roukema didn’t score in the first half for the Wolverines but finished with 10 points and eight rebounds to lead BHS.
DHS next will play Aurora Central at the Pueblo County Holiday Tournament on Dec. 11 in Pueblo, while BHS will face Peak to Peak at the Buena Vista Tournament on Dec. 12 in Buena Vista.
“We have a lot of things we’ve got to work on. It’s a young group still,” Fitzpatrick said. “We can work on everything, but they played hard. The effort was there, and that’s what’s most important.”
kgrabowski@durangoherald.com
