Yutan's full-court pressure led it to victory Tuesday against the Arlington girls basketball team.
The host Chieftains improved to 2-1 with the 47-27 win, while the visiting Eagles turned the ball over and dropped to 1-2.
“We hurt ourselves because we didn't come and meet the ball (on passes), one,” AHS coach Luke Brenn said. “But they're awfully athletic and long.”
Those attributes seemingly forced the Eagles out of their plan to beat Yutan's pressure.
“We discussed in practice that you can't throw over the top of it,” Brenn said. “But we kept wanting to throw over the top of it.”
Arlington fell behind their hosts 27-7, though Hailey O'Daniel's pull-up jumper had cut an earlier deficit to just 14-7. After falling behind 20 points, though, the Eagles produced their own 11-0 scoring run from the end of the second period into the early stages of the third.
Sophomore Britt Nielsen was the catalyst who pulled AHS within 27-18. She ended the first half with back-to-back 3-pointers before hitting another in the third quarter to go with Taylor Arp's 2-point bucket.
Overall, Nielsen finished with 15 points on five makes from beyond the arc.
“Britt, Emme (Timm) and even Macy (Wolf). We've got some other ones that can hit that, too,” Brenn said of his team's long-range prowess. “They keep shooting it and work on it in practice a little bit.”
Against Yutan, though, six 3s weren't enough. Maura Tichota led the Chieftains with 18 points, while Laycee Josoff had 12 and Haley Kube scored nine.
“We can only use the term, 'we're young' for so long because that's going to start wearing out,” Brenn said about his senior-less roster. “We've just got to get better. Pay attention to detail a little better.”
