th
Cherokee 77
The final score doesn’t indicte how well Kuemper played on Saturday afternoon. Cherokee hit three early 3’s to jump ahead 11-0. Brooklyn Gifford hit the first of her 3-3’s in the game to get Kuemper on the board. Kuemper trailed 23-10 after the 1
st quarter but hung right with the number 1 ranked team in the state for the 2
nd and 3
nd quarter 25-20 and the 3
rd quarter 12-7 as the Knights found themselves down 23 at the end of the 3
rd. The game stayed mainly between 15-21 ponts most of the 2
nd and 3
rd quarters.
Kuemper did a nice job hanlding the man to man full court pressure and shot the ball well fron down town with Gifford and Catherine Mayhall each making 3-3’s and Kyndal Hilgenberg draining 1. Akuet Malek had a fantastic game with 7 points and 10 rebounds may have the state single season record for block shots. She needed 11 and unofficially had more than that but official stats won’t be released until later this weekend.
In a game that came down to the wire, the Carroll Tigers were unable to come back and win on Saturday against Winterset. The day for the Tigers started off slower than they would have liked it, unable to get shots to fall for them. Winterset used the Tigers’ slow start to go up 12-2 in the first quarter and end up at 31-20 at halftime.
The second half for the Tigers was much improved as they started to chip away at the Huskies lead. The Tigers would go on a 9-4 run to start the third quarter and would end up down three at 38-35. Kennedy Lein and Gabi Hammer were the two taking charge and attacking the basket against Jena Young for Winterset in the third to get them down three heading into the fourth quarter. The Tigers had the chance to take back the lead in the fourth quarter, being down by one point multiple times. Head coach Katie Kock says her team had great looks in this quarter, but were unable to sink in the crucial shots to gain the lead. The Tigers would be down
Carroll hung tough for the 1
st half but for the second time this season Ballard was able to pull away in the 2
nd half. Kennedy Lein helped spark the Tigers early as Carroll got up 5-2 and 6-4. Ballard grabbed their first lead at 8-6 and didn’t trail again but Carroll only trailed 14-11 after the 1
st quarter. Carroll pulled within 17-13 early in the 2
nd quarter and the lead remained around 6 points until Ballard scored just before half to take a 21-13 lead into the locker room. The Tigers struggled coming out in the 3
rd quarter and Ballard took advantage outscoring them 22-9 in the quarter to lead by 21 heading to the 4
rd win of the season and 2
nd in a row. Catherine Mayhall exploded for 31 points hitting 5 three points and was deadly with runners in the lane. Kyndal Hilgenberg came up big with 13 points as the Knights played without second leading scorer Brooklyn Gifford.
Red Oak built an early 8-2 and 12-6 lead before Catherine Mayhall hit back to back 3’s to close out the 1
st quarter tying the game at 12. The Knights grabbed their first lead early in the 2
nd quarter only to see Red Oak answer and go up 16-14. The Tigers extended the lead to 26-19 before Mayhall and Kyndal Hilgenberg put them up for good. Mayhall drained a 3 to put them up 31-29 and them Hilgenberg knocked down a wing 3 to make it 34-29 and Kuemper would never trail again. Chloe DeVries wasn’t going to let Red Oak go down easy as she hit a pair of 3’s and the Tigers tied the game at 37 at the end of the 3
Kuemper won for the 12
th time in the last 14 meetings with East Sac County but it wasn’t easy on Saturday afternoon. The Knights used two runs, the second coming late in the 3
rd quarter to open up a tight game and held on for the win.
Kuemper went on a 15-4 run in the 1
st half to build their largest lead of the game as 23-10 midway through the 2
nd quarter but East Sac wasn’t going away. The Raiders clamped down defensively and got a couple shots to fall starting with a jumper by Mary Bontrager. The Raiders got a 3 from Lauren Litterer and Maty Quirk who hadn’t scored in the 1