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Basketball is difficult enough without putting undue pressure on yourselves.

The nervous Noxon Lady Red Devils lost a pair of District 14C conference games last week, falling 27-25 to the Savage Heat in Hot Springs Thursday and 67-28 to Arlee in Noxon Saturday.

Noxon coach Ryan Weltz thinks his Lady Devils have been too hard on themselves mentally, that they are not simply enjoying the opportunity to go out there, play and well, just have fun.

"I've been trying to tell them, this is just a game, go out there and have fun with it," he said. "It seems like we have been putting too much pressure on ourselves, and that has hurt us at times."

The Devils had their chances to break through and win the game at Hot Springs Thursday, but a few unfortunate bounces of the ball – one of them being a freak shot by Hot Springs off the top of the backboard falling straight into the hoop in the closing seconds to tie the game up – sent the game the Savage Heat's way.

Hot Springs' Sydney Jackson then hit a pair of free throws with only 2.8 seconds left to put the game away, erasing a nice fourth quarter effort by the Devils.

Delaney Weltz scored 13 points to lead Noxon, Kristina Brown and Kali Murray added four apiece, and Avery Burges and Chelea Vohs two each.

Please see other story for Hot Springs scoring.

The game with powerful Arlee got away from the Devils early in Noxon Saturday. "Arlee is a very good team," coach Weltz said, "they have a lot of weapons and know how to use them."

Delaney Weltz threw down 12 points to lead the Devils, Vohs scored seven, Madison Koonce three, Murray and Burgess two each, and Brown and Vanessa Horner one apiece.

Alyssia Vanderburg (20 points), Louetta Conko-Camel (15) and Nellie Desjarlais (11) paced Arlee.