The Bowie Lady Rabbits struggled in their district home opener on Tuesday against Iowa Park.
The Lady Hawks won 45-32 in a game where one bad quarter proved to be the major downfall for the Lady Rabbits.
Bowie was coming into the game following an opening district loss at Holliday by a decent margin.
The Lady Rabbits will be without leading scorer and ball handler Ziba Robbins for the foreseeable future due to an injury and Bowie is still working things out without her even though it’s the most important time of the regular season.
Despite that, the Lady Rabbits started Tuesday’s game positively, getting out to a 6-0 lead in the first two minutes and still leading 6-3 midway through the first quarter.
Bowie was shadowing Iowa Park’s best player to try and limit her touches within the flow of offense. The Lady Hawks started to generate some offense thanks to off-ball movement while also driving the ball off of the pick-and-roll while kicking out to open corner 3-point shots.
The Lady Rabbits limited it enough while scoring well against Iowa Park’s half-court press to lead 11-10 after the first quarter.
Things went wrong in the second quarter as the Lady Hawks were able to take advantage of a quick whistle to draw free throws and made two corner 3-pointers.
Bowie made some free throws as well, but only made one basket as Iowa Park outscored the Lady Rabbits 16-6 to take a 26-17 lead at halftime.
Neither team played good in the third quarter. Every 30 seconds there seemed to be a stop in play either due to a jump ball, travel, unforced turnover or foul call.
Both teams drew a lot of free throws and the Lady Hawks made one more basket, a 3-pointer, to outscore Bowie 11-8 as the Lady Rabbits fell further behind.
The pace slowed down in the fourth quarter as Iowa Park tried to work the clock up double-digits. Bowie could not score enough to get back into the game.
The Lady Hawks won 45-32.

To read the full story, pick up a copy of the weekend edition of the Bowie News.