The ladies varsity basketball team lost a heart-breaker 46-44 Tuesday night to non-conference opponent, Wyoming. The finals seconds didn’t yield a basket to propel the Rangers late. Turnovers plagued the Rangers throughout the night.

“We needed to slow ourselves down towards the beginning of both halves,” head coach Kristina Prins said. “We like to go full speed on offense and defense. That’s something we can’t do on the offensive side of the ball. We just needed to take better care of [the ball].”

Senior Maddy Smith showed signs of being the senior leader that this team has needed throughout the up and down season. She finished with ten points on the night and came up with two clutch threes to put the Rangers up early.

Despite the struggles with turnovers, the Rangers held their own in the first half. They led 24-17 at the break. Maddy fueled the early fire.

“I was going into tonight thinking about stepping up more as a senior,” Maddy said. “I played well on Friday, but last night wasn’t my best. I came into tonight knowing that I needed to carry my weight of the scoring.”

Emma Yoder came up huge for the Rangers as well. She was big on the defensive end compiling several blocks. Emma also finished with ten points, including two three-point plays. She also helped propelled the early charge for the Rangers.

“I had a lot of points last night,” Emma said. “I just wanted to come in tonight, and do the same thing. I knew they didn’t have their best point guard, so I was just helping a lot defensively.”

Emma used her height to her advantage, as she outplayed a lot of the Wyoming forwards. Madi Winter also contributed big on the offensive end. She had a lethal three-point shot to swing the momentum at the end of the second half.

The Rangers fell apart late, however, turning the ball over within the last seconds. Wyoming was eventually fouled and put on the line. Wyoming went up by two.

The Rangers are still looking for the X-factor that will propel them forward when it comes time for the tournament.

“We’ve played everyone, and now we’re just looking to continue to grow and get better,” said Prins, in her first season of coaching at FHC. “We’re trying to build a program, and obviously, I haven’t had as much time here, but that’s no excuse. We just want to finish the conference strong, and hopefully something clicks and we put it together for districts.”