ROCHELLE — Lady Hubs varsity basketball coach Tony Rowan said he thought his team was caught on its heels when the Rochelle girls squared off against Yorkville at Rochelle Township High School this past Saturday.

The Lady Foxes scored the first 13 points of the game, and Yorkville built up a 23-4 lead over Rochelle in the first half before the Lady Hubs began fighting back. While the purple and white managed to keep roughly an even pace with Yorkville over the remainder of the game, the girls couldn’t dig out of an early hole, falling by a final score of 71-49 to drop to 7-10 overall.

“They caught us on our heels in terms of their intensity, their effort and their aggressiveness,” Rowan said. “They didn’t throw anything at us that we haven’t seen in the past… We played on our heels instead of on our toes, and hopefully we’ll learn from this and continue moving forward.”

Senior Morgan Baker and junior Abby Lundquist each scored 15 points in the game, while senior Jacie Wyatt added 10 points. Yorkville rallied behind Lauren Daffenberg and Lindsay Harrison for most of the contest, with Daffenberg scoring a game-high 25 points and Harrison adding 19 points.

“Daffenberg was knocking down 3-pointers, and early in the game we talked about finding her in transition and not leaving her,” Rowan said. “She was getting wide-open looks from 3-point range and those are mental errors from us. We need to do a better job locking into our game plan… Harrison did a great job attacking the basket.”

The Lady Hubs will look to rebound against Mendota on Tuesday. While Rochelle fell behind Yorkville early, the girls were able to generate some positive momentum in the third quarter, with the Lady Hubs scoring in transition off turnovers by the Lady Foxes. But the Yorkville offense behind Daffenberg and Harrison ultimately proved too strong for Rochelle to contain.

“We took good shots throughout the game and there weren’t many forced looks,” Rowan said.