Lady Oracles still chasing victory
By Todd Swank

Last Wednesday the Delphi girls' basketball team again had a hard time trying to keep pace with a conference opponent. This time the Lady Oracles lost at home to the Twin Lakes Lady Indians, 70-24.

The Oracles trailed 7-4 when the Indians went on a 15-2 scoring binge to run the lead to 22-6 at the end of the first period. Hannah Strasser hit a shot just before the horn for the two points. The score would reach 32-6 before the Oracles' Brianne Stauffer stopped the flood coming from Twin Lakes. Stauffer's basket only slightly interrupted the scoring.

Twin Lakes scored the next 19 points in a row to stretch the lead to 51-8 early in the third quarter. Amanda Schultz hit a three pointer, followed quickly by a score from Stauffer, Emily Kayser and another by Schultz. After three the score was 58-17. The fourth quarter was much like the others with the Oracles outscored 12-7 for the final 70-24 score.

In a mid-day game at Clinton Prairie on Saturday, the Lady Oracles sought to recover from a couple of tough losses. While overall play improved and the game was close through most of three quarters, it was the Lady Gophers taking away the 49-30 win.

Delphi started the game with more movement on each end of the floor than past games. A man-toman

defense and good offensive ball movement seemed to give early energy to the Lady Oracles. Haley Richardson started Delphi's scoring with a nice move and jump shot. After a couple of Prairie baskets, Amanda Schultz hit a much needed 3-pointer to bring Delphi to within 3. Moments later, Stauffer hit a driving jumper to make the score 9-7 Prairie.

The air came out of the balloon a bit as the Lady Gophers took advantage of three Delphi turnovers and six missed shots to pull out to a 7-point lead. Kayser hit a jumper. Moments later Erika Hawn made a nice feed to Stauffer for a lay-up. Strasser finished out Delphi's half with some much needed rebounding and a couple of baskets. The half ended with Delphi pulling to within 4, 19-15.

Turnovers have been a continuing problem, and three straight to start the second half put the Oracles down again by 7. Hawn drove hard to the basket to earn 2 made free throws. Amanda Schultz hit 2 three pointers in a row to give Delphi its first, but only lead 23-22.

Excitement turned to despair however as repeated defensive breakdowns allowed the Gophers to make a 12-2 run. Offensively, much better ball handling was offset by poor shooting as Delphi had little to offset the Prairie spurt. The quarter ended with Delphi down 10, 34-34.

Hawn provided most of Delphi's scoring in the fourth with a trey and

converting a steal into a bucket. That was about it for the Lady Oracles as they continued to allow Prairie to find the open player for an easy shot. While Oracle play showed improvement, the final score 49-30 Prairie.

Schultz led the Oracles with 9, Hawn and Richardson added 5 each.

In the JV game, Coach Hanna's team recovered from a 10-point deficit at half to lose a nail-bitter, 31-29. Hannah Evans scored 10 and Danielle Burge added 7 for the Lady Oracles.

Editor's Note: The Clinton Prairie game was written by Bill Stauffer, who was filling in for Swank.