HCHS girls can’t escape early hole, fall 64-39 to AL

 HARLAN (Jan. 3) -- Poor starts at home have become an all-too-familiar pattern for the Harlan Community girls basketball team during its current five-game losing streak.
 The Cyclones fell behind 16-3 vs. Denison-Schleswig and 19-9 against Red Oak last month and on Friday night they trailed Council Bluffs Abraham Lincoln 32-11 by the middle stages of the second quarter.
 Down 43-22 at halftime, HCHS (4-5 overall) scored the first nine points of the third quarter but never cut the margin below 12 in a 64-39 loss to the 15th-ranked (5A) Lynx.
 “I feel like we’re playing okay. We’ve just got to get over the hump and gain a little confidence and I think good things will happen," said HCHS coach Zach Klaassen.
 The Lynx (7-2) built a 23-7 lead after one quarter, scoring 21 of their 23 on seven three-point baskets. They hit an eighth trey early in the second period and finished 9-of-18 from beyond the arc.
 AL senior Julia Wagoner came up huge, scoring 11 of the team’s first 14 points, making four first-quarter threes and finishing with a game-high 21 points and six steals. She entered the night shooting 2-of-14 from long range but caught fire early as the Cyclones opened in a 1-3 chaser defense, shadowing Lynx junior Jillian Shanks while the other four girls played zone.
 Klaassen noted that the Lynx had made only 35 three-pointers in their first eight games, almost half of them (17) from Shanks.
 “You could tell that everybody’s confidence just grew and grew and grew, but you’ve got to play the numbers and we played them and sometimes you (lose),” said Klaassen.
 The Cyclones, meanwhile, compounded their early deficit by committing several turnovers against a physical Lynx defense. Abraham Lincoln finished with 16 steals.
 HCHS played its best ball in the third quarter, outscoring the Lynx 14-10 after switching to a more effective triangle-and-two defense. Another highlight was some instant offense off the bench by sophomore Caitlyn Leinen, who scored eight of her team-high 10 points in the second quarter and made 5-of-6 field goals from a variety of spots on the floor.
 Brecken Van Baale hit a pair of threes and scored nine points for HCHS, Macie Leinen had seven points and six rebounds and Claire Schmitz tallied six points, six boards and two blocks.