Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – Lynsey Barnard and her City High team made it crystal clear they aren’t excited about any lose.

What Barnard and the Little Hawks are pleased with however is how they’ve handled coming up short this season.

“We are definitely learning something from every game that we lose, we are taking it and we getting better,” Barnard said. “Obviously, you don’t want to lose games but we are taking advantage of those loses.”

Take last week’s nine-point loss to third-ranked Cedar Rapids Prairie for example.

Rather than dwell on the negatives from the 48-39 loss to the Hawks, like 30 percent shooting and 12 second-half points, City High learned from the setback.

Perhaps no player picked up more from that loss than sophomore forward Kaitlin Loria.

“I think what we learned is we can’t let teams back in,” Loria said. “We let them back in the game and they won and tonight we knew we couldn’t let them back in the game.”

Loria wasted no time showing exactly what she had learned from that loss on Friday.

In a 51-35 win over ninth-ranked Cedar Falls it was Loria that nearly single-handedly slammed the door on the Tigers.

The 5-foot-10 sophomore scored 20 second-half points and had 15 of her game-high 24 points in the fourth quarter as No. 13 City High broke open a three-point game.

With the win over Cedar Falls the Little Hawks are now 3-0 on the season in games following losses and have won those three games by a combined 77 points.

“It helps with confidence,” Loria said. “After the Prairie loss our confidence wasn’t the best and tonight with our energy and how we played together as a team you could feel our confidence going through the roof.”

Loria finished with a double-double in the win over Cedar Falls, grabbing 11 rebounds to go with her 24 points that came on 9-of-11 shooting from the floor.

Loria made 6-of-7 fourth-quarter field goal attempts as City High shot 62 percent from the floor over the final eight minutes after 36 percent shooting through the first three quarters.

City High outscored Cedar Falls 22-9 in the fourth quarter and 35-21 in the second half.

“We were able to get into a flow on offense,” Loria said. “We finally took it into our own hands and said, ‘it’s not happening again’.”

The 24-point, 11-rebound performance was the best of the season for Loria and the second consecutive double digit rebounding effort.

It came after Loria had seven points and 11 boards in the loss to Cedar Rapids Prairie.

On the season Loria is averaging 9.8 points and 5.4 rebounds per game to go with career-bests 2 assists and 1.3 steals per contest.

Did you enjoy this subscription free article? Help keep Your Prep Sports free by donating.