Kuemper nearly evened their record at 3-3 heading into the break but saw it slip to 2-4 overall as St Albert edged away in the 4
th quarter outscoring the Knights 20-11. The Knights hung tough early down but 1 after the 1
st quarter and down 9 at half. They quickly changed that with a dominating 3
rd quarter and were up 5 heading into the final stanza. Kuemper shot the ball well from inside the arc hitting on 47.4% of their shots but only shot 10 for 31 from behind the arc with John Mayhall knocking down 5 and Mitchell Badding having 4 made threes.
John Mayhall led Kuemper with 21 points, Mitchell Badding added 16 points and 8 rebounds. Isaac Evans also scored in double figures with 11 points. Dawson Edwards handed out 5 assists.
The Carroll Tigers fought all night against the Raccoon River Conference’s number one team Ballard Bombers, but fell just short of knocking them off. The first quarter would be all Carroll as they would lead for most of the quarter and end with the 9-8 lead. The returning Ella Collison would lead the team with seven points in that quarter. Collison sustained a knee injury after Tuesday’s contest against Winterset, but was feeling great and was scoring great against the Bombers. Heading into the second quarter against the undefeated Bombers, the Tigers would keep the game close to them going into halftime trailing 19-17. Collison would lead all scorers with 10 first half points. Also scoring for the Tigers that half was Gabi Hammer with five points and Camryn Schable with two points.
The Carroll Tigers showed a lot of resolve on Friday night as they struggled early on the defensive end which hindered their offense and they found themselves behind the 3
rd ranked Ballard Bombers in a battle of number 2 vs number 3. Carroll didn’t want to get beat inside and the Ballard guards came out shooting the ball well. As all good teams do the Tigers adjusted at halftime and rallied in the 4
th quarter to take the lead late on a bucket by Kaleb Booth. The Bombers hit a shot to tie the game and then had a chance to win it but the shot didn’t go and the game went to overtime.
It wasn’t easy but the 2nd ranked Carroll Tigers improved to 5-0 overall and 4-0 in the Raccoon River Conference setting up a big matchup with 3rd ranked Ballard in Huxley on Friday. The Tigers fell down out of the gate but only 4-2, then answered with a 15-0 run to lead 17-4. The offense was moving the ball quick to find shots in the lane as Winterset was taking away the three in their zone defense. Carroll led 19-8 at the end of the 1st quarter and looked to be in control.
Some early turnovers in the 2nd quarter and Winterset got a couple shots to fall and gained some momentum. The Tigers saw their lead shrink to 24-20 late in the quarter but Tory Feldman who played with a ton of energy led a spark and helped Carroll have a 29-23 lead at half. It could have been 9 at the break but Levi Gurwell made a 3 from the left corner at the horn.
The Tigers suffered a couple of blows on Tuesday as they dropped a conference home game to fall to 3-3 overall and 1-3 in the Raccoon River Conference and they lost Ella Collison their leading scorer and rebounder early in the game to an injury.
Carroll had tied the game at 4 and 8 before Collison left the game and Winterset began to take control. The Huskies closed the quarter on a 6-0 run and led 14-8 heading into quarter two. Things didn’t get better for Carroll. They struggled on the offensive end to get good looks against the zone defense and Winterset took over the backboards on both ends of the floor. Jena Young went off for the Huskies in the 1