Indian girls roll to win in Liberal

2/12/2012

By NICK McQUEEN

nmcqueen@dailynews.net

LIBERAL -- The Hays High School girls' basketball team is just taking it all in stride.

The 2011-12 Indians have already reached a plateau the program has not seen in seven years and are on the verge of capturing a rare conference title.

Still, it's one game at a time -- the latest being Friday's 64-33 beating of Liberal in the Redskins' homecoming contest.

"Every day in practice, we just focus on the next game," HHS senior guard Hanna Pfannenstiel said. "We never look at the game after.

"The first goal is to win the WAC. In order to get there, it's game-by-game," she added.

In Friday's WAC win, the fifth for the Indians, it was all Hays High from start to finish.

"Was really pleased we came out and played to our potential and played together," Indian third-year coach Kirk Maska said. "That was really what we were focusing on was not trying to pad our stats by taking bad shots or forcing anything up."

A balanced scoring effort mixed with a solid defensive performance jolted the Indians to their third straight win (eight of their last nine), and ensured Hays High (11-4 overall, 5-0 WAC) of its first winning season since going 12-9 in 2004-05. It also was Maska's 25th victory in three seasons at the helm.

"We weren't underestimating them." Pfannenstiel said of Liberal, a team the Indians beat 59-28 on Jan. 6 in Hays. "We thought with a few weeks in between, they would come out with a little more. But we just took it as it was. And went from there."

It was hard for the Indians to imagine a more perfect start on the road in an opponent's homecoming game.

Hays High forced turnover after turnover in a full-court press, and mounted a 12-0 lead just 31âÑ2 minutes in.

"We missed a basket (early), but got the press going," Pfannenstiel said. "It just took off from there. Nice game -- a lot of fun."

Liberal had 11 first-quarter turnovers, resulting in a 24-6 lead for Hays High, and the rout was on.

"The girls played really well, and made an adjustment on the press after the first two trips --  got a lot of turnovers and some easy baskets," Maska said. "Besides the first two, three minutes of the second quarter, we really played well tonight.

"The only phase that was not very strong for us was our outside shooting."

Hays High finished the game 23-of-51 from the field, but 0-for-3 from 3-point range. Seven of the Indians' makes came inside with a career-high 18 points from junior forward Katelyn Schumacher, to go along with game-high nine rebounds. She finished 7-of-9 shooting, getting five feeds from senior Paige Lunsford.

"The girls say, 'Every time we look up, Katelyn's standing there wide open.' It was nice that we found her and she finished. Pleased with her performance tonight," Maska said. "She has just been playing really well for us."

Liberal's only scoring threat came from sophomore guard Jai Chapman. Chapman had eight points in the second quarter, before Pfannenstiel shut her down. Chapman finished with nine.

"I try to do that with anyone I guard," Pfannenstiel said. "It's always 'Hanna, this girl. OK, I'll take her on.' It's just something they expect me to do, so I just go after it --  kind of who I am."

Pfannenstiel also scored six points, one of seven Indians to get into the book in the balanced effort. Lunsford had 16, while junior Megan Bird had nine.

"We've been focusing on that. If we're going to beat people down the road in tough games, it's going to have to be a team effort, and we're going to have to play together," Maska said, "because somebody's going to have an off-night, and others are going to step up. I like the fact we had balance tonight. Really like the fact that free throw shooting was back on tonight."

Hays High finished 18-of-24 at the foul line, had 37 rebounds and forced Liberal into 21 turnovers, pulling out of the full-court pressure after the first quarter.

With five games left, the Indians now are jockeying for position in their Class 5A sub-state, but also eyeing a WAC title with three league games to go.

Hays High is in non-league action Tuesday at the HHS gym against Abilene (11-5).