Murray girls fall at Creston

CRESTON — The Creston girls had their transition offense in high gear in a 55-22 victory over Murray on Dec. 8.

After the game, Murray coach Chris Robins lamented her team’s inability to retreat on defense against Creston’s relentless fast break attack. Creston’s 1-3-1 trapping defense features senior guard Kadley Bailey at the top, and turnovers resulting from those traps led repeatedly to transition layups by Bailey, who scored 25 points.

“We weren’t running our offense right to get where we needed to be, so they were able to trap the passes that went to the corner,” Robins said. “I thought we were playing a little lethargic, not getting back on defense. We usually run like that against teams in our conference, making them try to keep up with us. Tonight, we weren’t running with them.”

Bailey had 19 points as Creston raced to a 32-9 halftime lead.

After Leah Frederick’s 3-pointer for Murray at the 4:55 mark of the first period, the Mustangs were in a scoreless drought until Maliya Berry’s 2-point basket with 1:37 remaining in the first half. By then, Creston had built a 30-9 lead.

Creston played at Class 1A top-ranked St. Albert the following night, and Murray also had a key conference game at home against Diagonal. The Creston-Murray matchup may continue at least another year as both coaches saw mutual benefits, despite Monday’s final margin.

“If we come to play our game, I don’t think it would have been quite like that,” Robins said. “I’d rather play good competition, especially when you have big conference games coming up.”

Neubauer said he respects Murray’s tradition as a consistently competitive 1A program.

“In their conference they will be a decent team for sure, they’ll probably win 13 or 14 games,” Neubauer said. “It helps us a little bit. Bound has power rankings, and those are used (in regional pairings and rankings). This will help us in the fact that as an opponent they will have won a lot of games.”

The Panthers fell 75-34 at Class 1A top-ranked St. Albert Tuesday in Council Bluffs. Meanwhile, Diagonal edged the Murray girls 37-35. Ashlynn Allee, Claire Grace and Halle White each scored eight points for Diagonal. Keristen Klein scored 13 for Murray and Maliya Berry totaled 11 points. Diagonal won the boys game 74-41.

MURRAY (22) — Totals — (FG FT PTS) 7 6-10 22. Maliya Berry 4 0-0 9, Leah Frederick 2 2-2 7, Keirsten Klein 0 2-04 2, Aylah Miller 0 2-4 2, Ella Mateer 1 0-0 2. 3-point goals — 2 (Berry 1, Frederick 1). Team fouls — 11. Fouled out — Klein.

CRESTON (39) — Totals — (FG FT PTS) 23 5-8 55. Kadley Bailey 12 0-0 25, Ella Turner 4 0-0 8, Brynn Tussey 2 1-2 5, Hollynn Rieck 1 1-2 4, Marlee Stalker 2 0-0 4, Jensan Tussey 1 0-0 3, Bentleigh Collier 1 0-0 3, Braylee Pokorny 0 2-2 2, Payton Veitz 0 1-2 1. FG shooting — 23-52 (44.2 percent). 3-point goals — 4-16 (Bailey 1, Rieck 1, J. Tussey 1, Collier 1). Team fouls — 10. Fouled out — None.