Stiefel stifles Bloodhounds early in SEC loss

BURLINGTON – Fort Madison assistant head coach Kent Bailey may have summed it best following the Lady Hounds’ loss to Burlington Friday night.
“It’s tough when you play good defense and everything goes in,” he said following the 66-44 Southeast Conference loss to the Grayhounds at Carl Johannsen Gym.
He wasn’t wrong. Burlington’s Mylee Stiefel couldn’t miss in the opening half and helped Burlington sprint out to a 17-4 first quarter lead half way through the first period. Stiefel, who had 15 in the first quarter alone, was hitting step-back threes with hands in her face and coming off the dribble. Most of her long balls came from the wing and top of the key.
Fort Madison switched things up in the second half and held the sharp-shooter to just six in the second half, but the Hounds never got closer than nine points the whole night.
Dayonna Davis hit a pair of free throws with 1:56 left in the first half to cut the lead to 32-23, but Burlington would go on a 7-2 run to close out the half.
Fort Madison shot a dismal 24.6% from the field in the game and a disheartening 53% from the free throw line missing 9 of 19.
“Sometimes it's just the other teams’ night and tonight was that night,” Head Coach Landon Bentley said.
“They had a few girls step up into big shots and you gotta tip your hat to Milee. She set the tone to start the game and we were kind of playing catch up the rest of the way. From there we never got to really relax and get into our rhythm. So kudos to them.”
Bentley said the Hounds had the same mentality with Stiefel they’ve had in years past, and that’s to pressure her around the perimeter, but he said they got a little mixed up in the coverage at the start and once Stiefel saw the ball go through she got hot.
When the Grayhounds opened up the quick 13-point advantage half way through the first quarter, Bentley called a time out to regroup and told the girls to pick up the pace a bit.

“We needed some urgency there and then to stack a couple possessions. You’re not going to score 13 points in one possession, but we needed to take advantage of getting the ball inside and then we needed to finish,” he said.
“We give up some threes at the beginning and some momentum, and then we go down and miss layups. We’ve got to do a better job of finishing around the basket,” he said.
Trailing by 15 at the half, the Hounds did a better job containing Stiefel with Hadley Wolfe and sometimes Davis chasing her from wing to win, but then other Grayhounds like Brown, Sela Rascon, and even some bench players got hot keeping Fort Madison at bay.
The Bloodhounds were getting to the rim and had open jumpers but shot just 9 of 33 in the first half and finished a chilly 16 of 65 from the field.
Davis finished with 19 points and Wolfe had 15, including a buzzer-beater at the end of the 1st period to cut the lead to 10.  Stiefel led all scorers with 23.
The Hounds turn around with a Saturday evening game at Burlington Notre Dame so Bentley said there wasn’t time to hang on the loss.
“I'm not going to hammer on them after a loss like that because they're already really competitive athletes and they want to win," he said.
"So it's just about execution right now. The ball wasn't going in tonight. I think that one of the biggest things now is to turn that page and our group of seniors will push that get-to-the-next-play mentality."