Warriors edge Huskies in regional playoffs

By Jeff Yoder
Posted 2/17/21

After a challenging regular season, the Highland girls put themselves in position to pick up a postseason win on Thursday, down just two points with a quarter to play.

The Huskie offense put up 17 …

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Warriors edge Huskies in regional playoffs

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After a challenging regular season, the Highland girls put themselves in position to pick up a postseason win on Thursday, down just two points with a quarter to play.

The Huskie offense put up 17 points over the final eight minutes, but couldn’t keep up with the Warriors in a 56-50 season ending loss to WACO. 

“We had a couple of defensive letdowns where we let (Ellah) Kissell get off,” Highland coach Jody Fink said. “Dani Laughlin then came back and really fought to get some shots there as well.” 

Laughlin finished 6-8 from the 3-point line for 22 points, while Kissell led WACO with 24. Kissell hit seven shots from outside, including two during a key fourth-quarter run. 

“Both teams started to hit some stuff,” Jody Fink said. “And it was an exciting game going to the fourth quarter, but then they took that from two to ten with a couple defensive breakdowns and were able to extend it. And then we just weren’t able to get it back to even.”

Sarah Burton had 13 rebounds, including five on the offensive end. 

Jenna Sands had five points, eight rebounds and two assists in her final game, while fellow senior Kayla Cerny had seven rebounds, scored three points, and had a team-high three assists. 

Sands and Cerny each filled key roles for the Huskies this year. 

“Kayla, for the most part, took care of our inbounding, and that’s a big part of our game,” Fink said.  “Jenna really started to come along scoring wise, rebounding wise here in the end. 

“It’s just been a crazy year and we just couldn’t get any consistency through everything. But we’ll miss them in those areas and have to fill some holes.”

Abbi Stranksy, scored 14 points and had nine rebounds for the Huskies. On Tuesday, Stranksy led the Huskies with 12 points in a 62-34 loss at Louisa-Muscatine. 

Overall, things started to click for Highland offensively towards the end of the season. After scoring more than 39 points just twice during the first 11 games, the Huskies scored at least 50 in three out of the last four. 

“So whether that’s conf-idence on their part, or what we’re doing… things started to click a little bit and our season just eventually got cut short,” Fink said.

Highland ends the season at 2-13, while WACO moved on to the regional quarterfinals at 8-12.

 

Looking ahead

The Huskies had significant production from its sophomores this year as well as the freshman Burton. Laughlin led the team in scoring with nearly 15 points per game. She averaged nearly four steals per game as well. 

Stransky averaged nine points, 6.7 rebounds, and a team-high 2.7 assists per game. She was selective with her 3-point shot and finished third in the conference (among players with at least one make per game) at 34.8 percent from long range. 

Burton led the team in rebounding with 7.7 per game at forward, her first season at the position.

“She’s never played a post, she was always a guard,” Fink explained.  “But she’s our biggest girl and we have to use her where we can. But there are things that she could do next year and maybe play a guard. She gives us a lot of options, she’s a very versatile girl. And I think she could be in for a big blowout season here next year.”

The key for Highland to reach its potential will be offseason preparation. The Huskies are planning to put in plenty of practice time over the offseason after a challenging schedule this year. Highland missed practices early in the season when the school district went to virtual learning, and Fink missed the month of January dealing with COVID and pneumonia. The team also lost practice time due to scheduling issues. 

“With the season the way it was, we canceled or postponed a lot of games in December and January became the makeup month,” Fink explained. “You have games, and you knew what you wanted to work on and what you wanted to change, but you didn’t have any time to do it.

“Even last summer, you know, not being able to go to a couple team camps and things like that. This year, we’re going to find a way no matter what, we’re going to go and get to play. And that helps our freshmen out, because it helps them with the speed of the game, the physical nature of the game.”