Rams start slow, finish strong in season-opening win

COUNCIL BLUFFS - The Glenwood girls basketball team’s season-opener at Council Bluffs Thomas Jefferson last Tuesday looked and felt like a season-opener.

For a quarter.

The Rams hit just one of their first six shots, turned the ball over six times and led just 10-8 after a ragged first quarter.

The second quarter would tell a different story. Glenwood scored the first five points of the second frame and turned up the defensive intensity as part of an 18-5 run that carried them to 65-37 victory on the Yellowjackets’ home floor.

“It was really sloppy,” said Glenwood coach Brian Rasmussen after the game. “You walk out of here with a 20-something point win and you should feel pretty good – and I do, we’re not 0-1 like we started last year – but we were sloppy.”

So some unsteady and inconsistent play wasn’t unexpected, Rasmussen said. Only one day earlier was the Rams’ first full practice with its complete roster in attendance.

“I think that showed,” he said. “I don’t know if we were as prepared as we should have been.  I don’t know if us coaches were as prepared for T.J. as we should have been. But once we got moving, got into a flow, we did a nice job.”

After taking a 28-13 lead into halftime, the Rams got hot in the third quarter. They hit  4-of-6 three-pointers and saw their lead swell to as many as 24 in the frame. That lead swelled to 30 early in the fourth quarter.

Freshman Jenna Hopp was a big part of the Rams’ surge. Hopp hit 2-of-2 three’s and scored eight of her game-high 23 in the third quarter. She helped key a Ram shooting effort that saw them hit 23-of-38 shots from the field (60.5 percent), including 11-of-16 from behind the arc.

Hopp was 5-of-5 from behind the arc with five rebounds and two steals in her varsity debut.

“She’s not a normal freshman,” Rasmussen said of Hopp. “She’s played a lot of basketball. She’s very mature, not just in her basketball skills but in her IQ. She’s going to help this team a lot. But she’s not the only one we have who can fill it up. On any given night it can be somebody new.”

Madison Camden added 12 points and Abby Hughes nine. In all, 10 of the 11 girls that played, scored.

“I feel like all 11 girls can contribute on any given night,” Rasmussen said. “I was happy to see the little things that may not show up on the stats. Everybody on this team knows their role and is really working hard. And that’s only going to get stronger. They know it, own it and want to be best they can be to make this as good a year as possible. It makes it fun.“