CLARION – Nightmare – that’s the only word that Webster City girls’ head basketball coach Nicole Muhlenbruch could conjure up to convey her thoughts on Friday night’s North Central Conference showdown with Clarion-Goldfield-Dows.

And she never saw it coming.

Focused on the task at hand prior to tip-off, the Lynx went out and underperformed at both ends of the floor in a 67-41 blowout loss to the Cowgirls. CGD led by as many as 33 points early in the fourth quarter and there was no magic that Muhlenbruch could pull out of a hat to stop the monsoon.

“It was just a nightmare and I didn’t even know what to do,” Muhlenbruch said. “We stepped out on the court and I’m not sure what happened. We were soft offensively and we were soft defensively.”

Facing a packed-in Cowgirls’ zone defense that dared WCHS to shoot from the perimeter, it took the Lynx 71?2 minutes to put points on the scoreboard as CGD (8-8, 5-4 NCC) bolted out to a 10-2 lead after one quarter.

Maddie Disney drilled a pair of second-quarter 3-pointers for CGD to help the home team build an insurmountable 31-10 cushion on the intermission.

Cassidy Nerland scored six of the Lynx 10 first-half points and the sophomore forward almost single-handedly carried the offense throughout the game. She finished with 21 points and 10 rebounds – both game highs – but a large chunk of her points came in the fourth quarter when the game was well out of hand.

Cassidy Bultena gave WCHS (5-9, 4-5 NCC) a brief spark in the third quarter with a pair of triples, but they didn’t even make a dent in the deficit. Disney cashed in on two from 3’s and Ashley Keller canned one bomb to help CGD extend its cushion to 50-23 going into the fourth.

Disney finished with 14 points. Inside presence Mekenzie Alberts outscored WCHS all by herself in the first half, 14-10, and she exited in the fourth quarter with a team-high 18.

Muhlenbruch wasn’t particularly pleased with how her team defended on the interior or perimeter.

“We’ve talked many times about the way to have a strong offense is to have a strong defense,” she said. “We needed to pick it up on the defensive end.”

Bultena registered nine points courtesy of three treys in the loss. Gabbi Hoversten chipped in five points and three steals. Chelsey Wagoner distributed five assists.

WCHS will attempt to end a current three-game skid on Tuesday when it hosts seventh-ranked (Class 3A) Hampton-Dumont at 6:15 p.m. The Bulldogs feature the league’s leading scorer in sharpshooter Jordan Prantner (19.0 points per game) and arguably the best all-around player in guard Jessica Speake.