Lady Tigers Get First Win of Season

The Amherst Tigers’ girls basketball team registered their first win of the 2016-17 season by defeating the Iroquois Chiefs by a score of 56-43.

It was a win that proved to be fairly easy for the Tigers, as they pulled ahead following a first quarter in which each team was neck-and-neck with one another.

“I think we played very well tonight,” Tigers coach Heather Radder said. “We were able to put a lot of pressure on Iroquois and contain their dribblers. We also needed to make sure that they couldn’t space the floor on us, which we accomplished and we also got a lot of deflections and had some fast breaks that went our way.”

Senior Claire Wanzer, who finished the game with a team-leading 17 points, agreed.

“We really needed this one tonight,” Wanzer said. “We opened our season with a really tough loss to Lake Shore, so I think winning this one helps our team kind of refocus for the rest of the season.”

After a close first quarter in which the Tigers only led by six points, the team flipped a switch in the second quarter. A 21-point outburst while holding the Chiefs to 16 in the period of play gave them a cushion that they never let up, and led to a 36-25 lead at the half.

“We were just focused on going on runs and not letting them get any momentum,” Wanzer said. “We really feed off of positive results well and once something goes well for us, it kind of snowballs from there. That’s basically what happened after the first quarter – a lot of things just fell our way.”

The Tigers never took their foot off the gas in the second half, increasing their lead to as high as 14 points before bowing out with a 13-point victory.

“We had some adversity to start the game off with, but we really pushed through it after the first quarter and played well,” Radder said. “I think tonight showed that we’ve got some good depth on our team, and that anyone can go on the court and help us out in any situation. We just rallied together.”

Through two games, the first impressions of the 2016-17 version of the Tigers have been positive for both the team’s coaching staff and the players.

“We’ve got some good potential here,” Radder said. “As long as we can create good pressure defensively and running the floor well, we can really make a push for the postseason.”

Wanzer concurred.

“I think this team has a really high ceiling and we can go pretty far,” Wanzer said. “We haven’t made it to Buff State since my first year on varsity as a seventh-grader, and I think if we made it that far, it could really change the culture around Amherst basketball and show that we could have success.”