Young Hornet squad looks to build for the future

Callie Thompson drives to the basket during a recent game in Henning. She scored eight points in last week’s loss to Rothsay. The Hornets ended their season with a record of 3-24 overall.

The Henning girls basketball team saw their season come to an end this past week in the Section 6 playoffs.  As head coach Mike Hepola has said many times before, it was a tough season with a young team in a really tough section and conference. The Hornets ended up starting playoffs against the seventh seed Rothsay who had a record under .500, but were a very talented team that had that record based on having to play several very tough highly ranked teams two times each.  

Addison Bode looks for an open teammate to pass the ball to during a recent game in Henning.

Henning  got off to a nice start offensively, but weren’t able to stop them enough on defense, but held a 14-13 lead about 9 minutes into the game.  Unfortunately, Henning went into a cold spell shooting and they got hot as they outscored us 26-7 in that final 9 minutes of the first half and held a 39-21 lead at halftime. The two teams traded baskets for a bit in the second half, but they were able to pull away for a 71-41 victory.  

Before getting into the stats and numbers, Hepola said he would like to say he is a  very competitive person and he absolutely hated having a tough season record wise for these girls, but he absolutely enjoyed coaching this group of young ladies and want to give a thank you to their two seniors, Lila Thorson and Tiffany Weber.  They both have been a part of our program all the way through and he wants to wish them nothing but the absolute best in all their future endeavors. 

 Eighth grader Stella Iliff scored 15 points during last week’s game against Rothsay.

Hepola also said he enjoyed coaching the underclassmen and am looking forward to continuing to work with them on their skills and see them take the experience from this season and build upon it and feel they can accomplish some good things in the next few seasons if they put in the extra work in the off-season. 

Offensively the Hornets were led by Stella Iliff with 15 points and Callie Thompson with eight points, they both shot the ball well going a combined 9-13 from the field and Iliff was 4-4 from the free throw line.  

Alivia Emter, Addison Bode and Abbigale Godding all had 4 points each, Lila Thorson and Brynn Reinbold two points each and Monica Hansen and Isabelle Godding with one point each rounded out the scoring. Iliff and Thorson led the team with four rebounds each, while Emter led the team with three assists.  

Individual stats

Callie Thompson 8 points, 2 rebounds

Alivia Emter 4 points, 2 rebounds, 3 assists, 1 steal

Brynn Reinbold 2 points, 1 rebound, 1 steal

Monica Hansen 1 point, 1 rebound, 1 assist, 1 steal

Tiffany Weber 1 assist, 1 steal

Addison Bode 4 points, 2 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 steal

Bella Olson 1 rebound

Abbigale Godding 4 points, 2 rebounds, 1 steal

Lila Thorson 2 points, 4 rebounds, 1 assist

Isabelle Godding 1 point, 2 rebounds

Stella Iliff 15 points, 4 rebounds, 1 assist