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.
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