With his team inching closer and closer to its second win of the season, Coach Fred Ross says there is still a long way to go.The Wright City girls have struggled mightily to put together a complete game, and while the Wildcats were about three quarters of the way there on Tuesday, it wasn’t enough in a 44-33 loss at Montgomery County.“By now it’s getting frustrating, because they’re old enough to know they shouldn’t be making those same mistakes,” said Ross. “They’ve got to get it fundamentally in their head that they can play at that higher level for the whole game.”Still, it was a significant improvement over the last time these two teams met, just four days earlier in the Hermann Tournament. Montgomery County had run away with a 28-point blowout.“We played a pretty good game, so it was a big improvement over last time,” said Ross.But the Wildcats would find themselves needing to overcome another slow start, trailing 13-3 early and going without a first quarter field goal.“We had a bad first quarter and didn’t make a basket,” said Ross. “We were going to the basket, but we weren’t finishing. So for us to still be in the game after that was fortunate.”Wright City battled back to close within one on a bucket by Kyle Winfrey with 3:05 remaining in the half and trailed 26-20 at intermission.“We did a really good job on offense to get some good looks, but we’re just not consistent enough,” said Ross.The Wildcats made good use of their first three possessions following halftime and were quickly back within one possession. But following a timeout, they gave up three consecutive turnovers, with Montgomery County scoring on two and stretching its lead.“We just have spurts where we’re not consistent,” said Ross. “We come out in the third quarter and hit our first three shots, but then we have five straight turnovers and start throwing the ball away.”Ross says he’s got to convince his team to battle for a full 32 minutes and not break under pressure.“Other teams are going 100 percent 100 percent of the time, but we’re going 100 percent just 75 percent of the time,” said Ross. “We had five balls taken away from us and five loose balls we didn’t get on.”Macy Evans led the Wildcats with nine points, scoring seven of those at the charity stripe.Amy Janowski added eight points.Wright City shot 11 of 21 from the free-throw line as a team.WRIGHT CITY FALLS AT MONTGOMERY COUNTYDerrick Forsythe photo.