The Lady Bruins entered the second half of their matchup against Francis Howell trailing with a close score of  29-20. With consistent pressure onto the opposition, and senior guard Katey Klucking’s astonishing 10 points going into the final quarter, the Bruins were able to gain the upper hand through the third, leaving the score a close 38-36. Gaining momentum, the girls shut down the Viking’s defense scoring a hefty 17 points leaving the Bruins at a 3-1 record off of their 55-46 win.
Senior guard Payton Mcallister, who held 10 points tonight, found that the game leading to the 2nd half was lackluster in offensive coordination. For the seasoned player, the groove of the team felt off until they united their playing and began to pick up steam that lead to their success.
“I think the first half was [kind] of scatterbrained on offense but our defense keyed us in,” Mcallister said. “Then in the second half we came out strong and played more as a team and took the lead and kept [the pressure] up.”
Similar to her guard, head coach Jill Nagel saw  room for improvement upon assessing the first half. She also attributes the Bruin’s lack of offensive pressure to the subsequent rise in the oppositions score as the defense had to work twice as hard.
Furthermore, Klucking found Francis Howell’s offensive shooters to be extraordinarily precise with their shots and rotations of players, effectively confusing the Bruins defense.
“[Francis Howell] had two really good shooters so we had to constantly find them,” Klucking said.”[The Vikings] did a really good job of finding [them]. We eventually moved to a 2-3 zone and it helped getting the shooters in the corner.”
With the opposition’s shooters accounted for, the Bruin defense found their in and began to shut down the offense. After a small trickle of points, the Bruins secured a strong victory with Klucking holding the highest score of 14 points.
Nagel closely watched for both the good and bad in her team’s performance, analyzing the game in order to know  what problems to hash out during practice. The Lady Bruins look forward to taking on St. Joseph Sat. Dec. 9.
“[The upset between the third and fourth quarter came from] being able to get stops on the defensive end followed by scores on the offensive end and keep Francis Howell on their heels offensively,” Nagel said.