Lady Crusaders rolled at West Burlington

WEST BURLINGTON — Holy Trinity’s girls basketball team got off to a strong start against West Burlington, then stopped scoring.
Which is why coach Shawn Hopper delivered a message to his team after the 60-26 loss on Friday night.
“We played three quarters like we didn’t want to be here that badly,” Hopper said. “Basketball is a game of skill and effort, and when you don’t put in the effort, games like this happen.”
Holy Trinity (3-10 overall, 2-8 SEISC South Division) got to a 10-7 lead with 2 ½ minutes remaining in the first quarter, and was tied at 10 when the quarter ended.
But with Adalyn Kruse, the team’s leading scorer this season, on the bench with two fouls in the second quarter, the Crusaders scored just two points the rest of the first half and were down 29-12 at halftime.
Ten of Holy Trinity’s first-half points belonged to Elizabeth Griffin, who would finish with 16 points despite dealing with a shoulder injury.

“You can’t have one person get in foul trouble and all of the sudden you don’t know your left from your right,” Hopper said. “Elizabeth got going, but Adalyn gets in foul trouble, and then it just seemed like we were afraid to attack the basket. Some kids were afraid to shoot the ball. When you're not going to do things to spread out the defense, all they have to do is sit in the middle and wait for Elizabeth to get the ball, and then close the route and you’ve got nothing.”
Hopper also didn’t like how the Crusaders handled the Falcons’ defense.
“I can say it until I’m blue in the face, but you’ve got to be ready to make the pass,” he said. “You’ve got to be ready to catch the pass. And I don't know how many times tonight, we just passed it right to their hands. Very frustrating. I'm probably more frustrated tonight than I was after the Danville game (a 59-8 loss on Tuesday with Griffin and Kruse not playing). I felt like we had a couple good practices and then we came out and started strong.” 
That’s why Hopper challenged his team to come out with a better effort in Saturday’s home game against city rival Fort Madison.
“We did a better job running in the offense that we worked on in practice last night when we subbed in the fourth quarter,” Hopper said. “We'll see how tomorrow goes, I challenged them in the locker room after this game like I haven't before. The defensive effort has to be there. I mean, what you do on the defensive end carries over on the offensive end. And if you're lazy on defense, you're gonna be lazy on offense. And that's what I saw tonight.”
Kaylee Webb led West Burlington (10-4, 8-3) with 21 points. Presley Prill had 14 points, and Adley Mundth had 12.