The Varsity Girls Basketball team started their season off with a win. Monday, Dec. 1 was the beginning of the Girls Basketball tournament where FHN defeated Timberland with a score of 55-42.  On Wednesday, Dec. 3, North beat Lutheran North with a final score of 40-33.

“Coming into the games I wanted to play at the best of my ability and basically get those first game jitters out of the way,” junior Jessica Brady said.  “I feel like our team is finally coming together and I was excited to be out on the court with this group of girls. Our team has put in lots of work and effort towards becoming better and I think because of that we were able to win these past two games. We plan to continue working hard and have hopes of  winning the championship on Friday.”

Both games started off  head-to-head with the other team.  Monday’s game was close-cut for awhile but the girls came out in the third quarter with hard defense and pushed through to get ahead.  Then, after losing for a little bit Wednesday evening  the coach’s positive attitudes and encouragement got the girls fired up and gave them energy to take the lead and bring home yet another win. It wasn’t until towards the end of both the games that the girls really got a good 10 point advantage against the Eagles.

“Coming into both games we were told not to take it lightly. We wanted to make sure we played hard defense especially,” junior Katie Turnbeaugh said.  “I expected us to be good because I know how well we work together. We really know how to get up and down the court at a fast pace. The amount of energy we had on defense is what got us the wins.

Austine Pauley helped the team by accumulating a total of 17 points for the Monday night game and rounded up 11 points for the wednesday night game along with her many other teammates who worked hard scoring multiple baskets too.

“We had  about 5 people who were close to scoring 10 or more points a game,”  Coach Hahn said.  “When you can have a team scoring like that it will be very tough to stop these girls this season.”

Working together is top priority for this team.  They managed to get up and down the court fairly quickly these past couple games and had a significant amount of energy on defense.  There weren’t very many specific “highlights” of the game, but multiple plays and shots that were outstanding. The girls team  has so much to offer and every player contributes 100%.

“Though I haven’t played due to a recent concussion, I think talking and always making sure we are helping out each other and being constructive will get us far,” senior Sierra Teuscher said.

Staying positive is the girls secret.  Not letting little mistakes affect or change their mindsets  keeps the team in a positive direction.

“The toughest part of a game for me is making sure I stay positive. Sometimes I’ll make a mistake and get a turnover or miss a shot and that’ll start to bring me down,” junior Jessica Brady said.  “But, because of my teammates and coaches I’m motivated to stay positive and be the best player I can be.”

Hoping to stay high on this win streak, the girls will face the challenging Dushesne Pioneers this Friday, Dec. 5, in the Championship.

“I’m looking forward to facing Duchesne because we don’t see them that much and they are a challenging team, so we will see what our team does under pressure,” Pauley said.  “I’m thinking we are going to have high energy throughout the game and put a lot of pressure on them and win the tournament.”