Moose chew way through Chugiak D

PALMER — The Palmer Moose handled the Chugiak Mustangs 55-39 on Friday night. Chugiak gave the Moose fits defensively, but senior Kendal Venzke and the Moose were too much for the Mustangs, as the Palmer girls coasted to the 16-point victory.

Chugiak started off the game in a 2-3 zone, making it difficult for the Moose to work the ball inside as they normally do. Not only was it difficult for the Moose to score from inside the paint, but Palmer went stone cold from the field as well, especially beyond the 3-point line.

“I just told the girls try to get the ball inside a little more. I thought our posts wereopen, and when we did get the ball inside, we were getting to the line,” said Palmer head coach Paul Reid.

But Palmer’s troubles continued at the free-throw line as well.

“What can you do? It’s one of the things we worked on all week, and it’s just a matter of getting over a mental hump, but obviously we’d like to make more free throws than we did,” said Reid.

Late in the first quarter, Chugiak increased its defensive pressure to 3/4 court. By the end of the first quarter, Palmer led 6-4 and it looked as if the game would be a defensive battle. While the Mustangs threw multiple types of zone defenses at the Moose, Palmer had the speed and height advantage over Chugiak, making it difficult to get decent scoring opportunities.

This stifling defense resulted in numerous Mustang turnovers.

The swaying factor for the Moose was Venzke, a three-year varsity player. Venzke came up with steals, offensive rebounds and loose balls, and took the hard-fought points to give the Moose a seven-point lead at half. Venzke turned her defense into offense and her athleticism into an advantage over the Mustang ball-handlers.

“Kendal’s always a big part of our success on offense and defense. She’s usually the best athlete on the floor and the one (who’s) going to come up with most of those balls,” said Reid.

As the game wore on, the defenses relaxed into a more fast-paced style of play.

Chugiak took advantage of this and started the fourth quarter on fire. The Mustangs forgot all about their turnover and field-goal percentage problems and promptly started to threaten the Moose lead.

“They had some energy with a couple of steals, hit a couple of shots, they were just trying to fight to get back in,” Reid said. “We finally established ourselves on the free-throw line to put the game away.”

Tim Rockey is a senior at Palmer High School who also writes for the Frontiersman’s Sports section.