Losing one and winning one in the first two games of the Ralph Miller Classic, the Chanute Blue Comets girls fell in the first round to De Soto, 48-35, on Thursday before taking down Wichita- West, 47-23, on Friday.
Saturday’s games were postponed due to the winter storm. No makeup date has officially been announced, but Feb. 7 is the date being explored.
Chanute committed 19 turnovers in the loss to De Soto, allowing 12 points in those instances.
“They’re a really wellcoached team and they were more physical,” Chanute head coach Dustin Fox said. “You could tell they were the older team. We’re still learning and growing. We had stretches where we competed. But we had dry spells, too. The girls never quit and made it a game. I appreciate that this group just keeps coming at teams.”
Kate Uhner led the Blue Comets with 10 points in the loss on 3-of-12 shooting. Laney Holtzman and Averee Hicks added six apiece.
Maddie Leis paced De Soto with 20 points while Katie Bush added a dozen.
Chanute dominated Wichita- West on Friday, going into halftime up, 23-5.
“In the first half, we didn’t do a good job of being focused and playing to our ability,” Fox said. “We let the sloppiness carry over to our end. In the second half, we did a better job of executing and getting the shots we wanted. We got more shots we wanted and got more stops. We got the lead up before we emptied the bench.”
The Blue Comets held West scoreless in the second quarter. Over the course of the entire game, West shot 19% from the field and committed 20 turnovers.
“We played hard defensively,” Fox said. “We did a good job hunting traps and finding opportunities defensively to turn them over. That’s good to see. When you play a team you can do that to, you need to do it.”
West narrowed the deficit in the final stanza with Chanute going deep into the bench.
“In the last few minutes, we had a lot of turnovers. But those are kids that needed experience,” Fox said. “Those are kids we needed film on. Now they have something to look back on.”
Brynna Peter and Sarah Uhner both led the Blue Comets with 11 points while Kate Uhner chipped in 10 for Chanute.
Fox said if Chanute ends up not finishing the Ralph Miller Classic at a later date, he’d like to try and find another opponent to round out the team’s schedule.
“If it works, we want to play,” Fox said. “If it doesn’t we’ll explore finding another date with another team. It’s tough not having a ton of open dates. If we add a game, we could be playing back-to-back before or after a league game. We want to play. We just want to find the right fit.”
Up next
Chanute hosts Trinity Academy on Tuesday.
“It’s about getting better,” Fox said. “We have a young group, so we have to keep improving. We don’t want to get caught up in wins and losses, but get caught up in competing. If we do that, the wins will take care of themselves.”