The shots weren’t falling last week, and the end result was a win (51-45 in Hot Springs Friday) and a loss (49-41 to S. Regis in Plains Saturday) for coach Eddie Fultz and his Plains Trotters.

The Trotters will finish up regular season play with another pair of 14C conference games this week, visiting Noxon Friday and hosting Two Eagle River for senior night Saturday.

Fultz said he didn’t think his girls played very effective defense in either game last week, and looks for the Trotters to improve in that area in what is left of the regular season. “I know we can play better defense than we showed last week,” he said, “and we also could rebound a little better.”

The Trotters may have won the game in Hot Springs in the first quarter, building an 18-8 lead after those first eight minutes and then holding off the host Heat in the end to win. Hot Springs reportedly closed in several times, but could not quite take the lead.

Rachel Huenink and Kylee Altmiller each canned 12 points to lead Plains to the road win, Kassidy Kinzie added 10, Emma Morgan six, Haley Josephson five, Natalee Deschamps four and Willow Sturdivant two. See other story for Hot Springs scoring.

Hosting St. Regis the next night, Fultz said the visiting Tigers came out shooting the ball very well and moved to the win.

“Our shots weren’t falling and theirs were. We didn’t play awful,” he said, “we just didn’t play well enough to win.”

Fultz said Kylee Thompson hurt the Trotters the most, shooting down several 3-pointers and finishing with 15 points, Madison Kelly also scored 15 for St. Regis and Emma Hill added 11.