STATE CENTER — The South Hamilton girls were unable to fend off West Marshall here Friday night, falling 43-36.

The Trojans used a fast start before the two teams combined for just nine points in the second. West Marshall would outscore the Hawks in the fourth, 14-11, to secure the win.

“Unlike the night before, we started off really slow in this one,” SH head coach Mark Henderson said. “We found ourselves down 11-3 in the first quarter.

“As low scoring as this game was, that felt like a large deficit. Our girls did a good job of fighting back and bringing the score to 13-12, but we could never make the big bucket to take the lead.”

Ashlyn Erickson had 11 points to lead the way for South Hamilton (10-6 overall, 7-3 in Heart of Iowa Conference), who has dropped two straight.

West Marshall has won three in a row vs. the Hawks and 11 of the last 14 meetings overall.

“I thought both teams played very hard and played good defense,” Henderson said. “We did a real nice job holding their top scorer, Bella Borgos, to just six points. She is the leading scorer in the conference and is very tough to defend. Tanna (Thompson) had that assignment most of the night and did a great job.

“Overall I can’t fault our girls’ effort. We just needed to find a way to make a few more shots. Credit to West Marshall for making that difficult for us. They have some size inside that made it hard for us to finish around the rim. We couldn’t hit enough outside shots to pull them out of their zone.”

On Thursday, the Hawks fell to South Hardin, 56-46. Erickson finished with 23 points and six rebounds to lead the way.

South Hamilton returned to the court on Monday against Saydel. The Hawks then face Nevada at home on Tuesday.