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The first half of the Barneveld/Benton girls basketball game Monday night saw two teams playing their season opener and trying to find themselves. It was a defensive battle.
The halftime score stood Benton 19, Barneveld 13.
Then, the second half saw Benton finding themselves more than the Eagles did.
The final score stood Benton 59, Barneveld 36.
Benton senior guard Maggie Dougherty hit 15 of her game-high 23 points in the second half. Many of those points came from fast breaks off of steals - and the steals were plenty.
Another Zephyr senior Shay Soppe also tossed in 23 points as five Benton players scored.
Barneveld coach Chris Thousand ran two units on the court time after time and had seven players score.
They were led by sophomore Leah Marx with 10 points. Grace Gordon hit two three pointers and finshed with eight.
"Our game plan was to run them and try to wear them down," Thousand pointed out. "That didn't work. We were too undiscliplined tonight with our transition defense and gave them too many layups."
"Benton has long arms and intimidating," the coach said.
He pointed out that his team lost seven of their top nine players from last year.
"We're trying to figure out roles that will help the team," Thousand said."We need to find our strengths."
SCORE BY HALVES
Benton 19 40-59
Barneveld 13 23-36
BOX SCORE
BENTON 59 (fg, ft, tp) M. Dougherty 11-0-23, Matthews 2-1/4-5, S. Dougherty 0-3/8-3, Redfern 2-0-5, Soppe 9-5/6-23. Totals 24-9/18-59. F-9. 3-pointers: M. Dougherty 1, Redfern 1.
BARNEVELD 36: G. Gordon 3-0-8, Schult 2-1/2-5, Leister 1-0-2, E. Gordon 1-0-2, Marx 5-0-10, Hendrickson 1-0-2, Spring 2-0-4. Totals 16-2/4-36. F-16. 3-pointers: G. Gordon 2.