West Liberty High School girls basketball

'Fun' girls season cut short

Comets end one of best seasons in West Liberty history

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Even though the season goal fell short for West Liberty High School’s girls’ basketball team, third year coach Matt Hoeppner said it was one of the best seasons he’s ever had coaching.

When asked if coaching this year’s Comet team was fun, he said fun was an understatement. “The atmosphere each and every day this season was such a blast to be a part of,” he said. “I would repeat this season over and over again if I could. The camaraderie of this team may never be duplicated.”

West Liberty, which was ranked in the top 10 in Class 3A most of the season, lost a home Iowa Girls High School Association Athletic Union Regional Final to Davenport Assumption on Feb. 16, dashing hopes of making it to the state tournament in a tight 39-37 loss to the Knights, which were unranked going into the game.

“I think we definitely ran out of gas,” Hoeppner said of a gallant second half comeback after being down 19-8 at the half. “Our defensive number each game was to hold our opponent to under 40 points and we did just that. Had we shot just a little better than awful in the first half we put ourselves in position to win that game.”

The Comets had one of their worst shooting nights of the year, hitting just two of 19 field goals in the first half. “Ultimately that was our demise,” Hoeppner said, noting Assumption didn’t pull any surprises on his Comets, noting he thought he had the Knights pin-pointed in their game strategy.

“We had higher goals than where we ended, but in athletics sometimes that happens,” he said as the team finished at 18-5, one of the best seasons in school history.

The coach said actually the season went “great,” noting every one of his eight players showed up to work hard and learn each and every day.

“For us coaches, we set an expectation early in the season that everyone give us 100 percent every game and things would sort themselves out, and the girls did that each and every day,” Hoeppner said. “There is nothing else we could have asked of them.”

The coach said it was different coaching two sets of sisters on the team (the Hall trio and the Buysse duo) but said it wasn’t difficult at all. “However, having sisters on the team definitely gave all of us some great laughs and some good memories for years to come,” he said

He called it “an honor to be a part of the milestones these girls set this season” including senior Macy Daufeldt hitting the 1,000 point mark while also collecting 500 career rebounds, while classmate Sailor Hall broke the school record for assists. Daufeldt also broke the school record for points in a season at 433.

He also complimented the play of his freshmen this season. “When you put everything into perspective, they were only able to play 2-3 games as eighth graders due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so they hadn't played much basketball at all since they were seventh graders. Both of them (Sophie Buysse and Pearson Hall) jumped in feet first and were starters and great players for us this year.”

While Daufeldt led the team with 433 of their total 1,189 points scored, the 6-0 center hit over 49 percent from the floor (168 of 342) and 30 percent of her three-point shots (16 of 52) while hitting 55 percent from the charity stripe (81 of 147). She also had 201 rebounds, 27 assists and 70 steals along with four blocked shots.

Junior Finley Hall was the second leading scorer on the team with 291 points, hitting 104 of her 300 shots from the field, hitting 50 of 182 three-pointers and leading the team from the free throw line with a 33 of 48 performance for 68.8 percent, just a half of a percent higher than sister Sailor Hall, who hit 41 of 60 free throws. Sailor also led the team in steals with 76 while having 91 assists and leading the team as well in blocked shots with nine. Finley and Sailor Hall had 136 and 126 rebounds respectively while sister Pearson finished the season with 81.

Sailor Hall hit 62 of 202 field goals and was 24 of 9 from three-point land. Little sister Pearson was the fourth highest scorer on the team with 160 points, hitting 65 of 195 from the floor and just 14 of 76 three-pointers while going 16 of 35 from the line. She also had 52 assists and 67 steals on the season.

Senior Brooklyn Buysse scored 55 points for the season while sister Sophie managed 49 points. Sophomores Paige Werling and Sammi Goodale rounded out the Comet scoring for the season with 10 and two points respectively.

The coach said it will be difficult to replace Daufeldt and Sailor Hall and said he will be recruiting students to come back and play next year.

Hoeppner said he also plans to work with the school district with the sanctioning of girls wrestling in Iowa as an official sport, hoping to work with all athletes to allow them to compete in dual winter sports.

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