By Hannah Glupker
The Hamilton Hawkeyes girls crushed the Coopersville Broncos 66-30 to advance their record to 3-4. The Hawkeyes top scorer was Kyra Kleinheksel (#23) with 22 well earned points. Taylor VanderZwaag (#12) was the second top scorer with 14 points. The Hawkeyes locked down on defense to hold Coopersville to 2 points in the first quarter. In the beginning of the second quarter the Broncos stepped up their game scoring 14 more points, going into halftime with a score of 32-16. Coming out of halftime the Hawkeyes really focused on offense and scored a total of 21 points in the third quarter. The fourth quarter ended with a 3 point buzzer beater shot made by Sommer Lappinga (#22), and the Hawkeyes ended with a victory over Coopersville.
One key contributor to the Hawkeyes was a junior Jess Berens (#2), in an interview she explained how she thought her team worked together during the game. “At times we had quite a bit of turnovers in a row, so we knew we had to do something about it. We all came together and encouraged each other and I think that’s the most important thing that helped us tonight. None of us played as an individual and we were playing as a team the whole game. We have a motto which is to forget about what happened the second a bad thing happens and that helps us a lot because the mistake doesn’t matter anymore. As soon as the mistake happens we come together and we make something really good out of one little mistake.”