The Bowie Lady Rabbits kicked off their season on Saturday morning playing a top 10 ranked team in the state in 1A Slidell.
The Lady Greyhounds won 49-40 in a physical game where the Lady Rabbits are trying to figure things out.
With the volleyball team losing only four days before, new Coach Matthew Miller only had three days of practice with his full team before the game.
Still Bowie started the game well, playing physical defense and leading 8-2 late in the first quarter. Slidell scored two buckets late to cut the lead to 8-6 heading into the second quarter.
It was another close quarter with neither team breaking away. The Lady Greyhounds did make one adjustment a few minutes before halftime when they switched defenses from man-to-man to an aggressive zone.
This threw off Bowie and led to several turnovers that led to Slidell leading 18-17 at halftime.
The start of the third quarter went wrong for the Lady Rabbits. The not making one in the first half, the Lady Greyhounds started making some 3-pointers.
Within the first minute Slidell upped the lead to 24-17 and eventually increased it to double-digits.
Bowie was navigating the zone better, but could not do its drive-and-kick offense it wanted to do.
The zone did give up corner 3-pointers and the Lady Rabbits got several open shots. Unfortunately, only two went in during the quarter and not much else as the team got no free throw attempts.
Slidell had four go in and pushed the ball off of misses before dumping it to a tall post player to finish baskets inside.
The Lady Greyhounds led 39-25 heading into the fourth quarter and Bowie needed to find a way to turn the game around.
The Lady Rabbits did turn things around as they stopped settling for outside shots. Leading scorer Ziba Robbins scored nine of her team high 15 points during the fourth quarter as the team upped its defensive intensity.
At one point Bowie had cut the lead down to 39-34 with 4:20 left to play, but that would be as close as the Lady Rabbits got. Slidell made enough of its free throws down the stretch and did not turn the ball over a ton that led to quick scores.
The lead climbed back up while the Bowie struggled to score for the rest of the game as the Lady Greyhounds won 49-40.

To read the full story, pick up a copy of the mid-week edition of the Bowie News.