Wolverines handle Lady Big Horns in West

Collins’ 23 points contribute to fourth straight LPHS loss

By Brandon Walker

WEST YELLOWSTONE – West Yellowstone’s Emmie Collins poured in a game-high 23 points in front of her hometown crowd to help the Wolverines defeat the Lone Peak High School Lady Big Horns 47-24 on Feb. 3 in a rivalry matchup between schools from neighboring communities. 

LPHS entered the game—rescheduled from a postponement earlier in the season—on a three-game losing skid having fallen to Manhattan Christian 57-34 on Jan. 28, Gardiner 49-47 on Jan. 30 and Shield Valley 48-23 the previous evening. 

Playing on the road for the second consecutive night, Lone Peak struggled to generate offense. The Wolverines held LPHS without a 3-point field goal in the contest and tried to slow their leading scorer, Maddie Cone, who was averaging better than 13 points per game over the team’s previous three matchups against the Eagles, Bruins and Rebels.

Lone Peak Head Coach Taylor Cummings said it wasn’t easy for her team to bounce back following a tough loss the evening prior. “We just didn’t go into the game with a lot of confidence and I think that really ended up hurting us,” she said.

The Wolverines immediately put the pressure on the Lady Big Horns, outscoring them 11-4 in the first quarter, with all four of Lone Peak’s points coming at the free-throw line—two from senior Ivy Hicks, one from junior Carly Wilson and one from Cone. 

LPHS righted the ship in the second quarter, matching West Yellowstone’s scoring total at eight apiece in the quarter. In a seesaw battle between each team’s eventual leading scorer, Cone provided five points in the quarter, while Collins scored all eight of the Wolverines’ points to enter the locker room leading by a seven-point margin. 

Coming out of the half, West hit its stride as the third quarter proved to be the difference maker in the game. In the eight minutes following halftime the Wolverines outscored the Lady Big Horns 20-3, with Collins and teammate Ashlyn Roos combining for 18 of those points and helping their team seize a 39-15 advantage entering the fourth.

LPHS relied on steady free-throw shooting in the contest, which accounted for a third of their point total overall. At the foul line the Lady Big Horns shot roughly 57 percent, 8-for-14, and outpaced the Wolverines foul shooting mark of nearly 43 percent. 

Roos finished with 16 points to compliment Collins’ 23 for West Yellowstone, while Lone Peak’s leading scorers were Cone with six points, followed by Hicks with five and freshman Astrid McGuire with four.

“[I] saw a lot of good things from our bench and some of our younger players stepped up,” Cummings said. “So that was good to see.”

The loss dropped the Lady Big Horns’ season record to 2-6 overall and left their road record at a 1-3 mark this season. Next up on the LPHS schedule is a matchup at the Bough-Dolan Athletic Center where the Lady Big Horns will host Lima this evening at 5:30 p.m. and will look to snap their losing streak.

“I think we’ve got to go back to our foundation and … what kind of team we want to be.” Cummings said. “I think we’ve got to kind of go back to the starting blocks and use these two days to focus on the little things.”