Observations all along the line - Kimball & the Southern Panhandle First
Observations all along the line - Kimball & the Southern Panhandle First
Kelly Green looks to pass.
When Kimball’s high powered offense shifts into gear, the resulting speed and noise can be exhilarating--for local fans, if not for the opposing team.
The Longhorns’ commanding 55-36 victory on Friday night at Pine Bluffs began as a back and forth battle. Although Shelby Vogel and Darbi Klinkhammer seemed unstoppable, the Hornets’ Sam Hanson hit a jumper less than a minute into the second quarter that narrowed Kimball’s lead to a paper slim 12-11.
“In the first we weren’t playing as well as we are capable of,” Taylor Wismer said. “But they were tough.”
With Pine Bluffs sticking tight to the Longhorns’ outside shooters and penetrating on the offensive end, head coach Ken Smith shifted from a man look to a 1-3-1 zone.
“They’re dangerous if you let them hang around,” Smith said of the Hornets. “We weren’t rotating well in man.”
Shortly afterward, Klinkhammer and Wismer sank three-pointers. Danika Daum drove into the lane and banked a jump shot and Vogel tacked on 4 points. Before the half ended, Wismer scored again from beyond the arc, Vogel carved through the Pine Bluffs’ defense for another lay up and Klinkhammer converted two breakaways.
“They came out hard,” the senior point guard pointed out. “You have to find a way to get your shots off.”
Before the run ended with an Andrea Baker jumper that angled off the glass at the 5:33 mark in the third quarter, Klinkhammer and Jessica Hanks had capped a 27-0 Kimball run.
The Longhorns led 39-11.
“In the second quarter we picked up our intensity,” Wismer observed.
Daum ended the third by swishing a three to put Kimball on top 48-20. And while the final period may have seemed like a foregone conclusion, the home side continued to play a physical brand of basketball.
“They seal you off,” Vogel reported, adding that the girl leaning on her “weighed 20 pounds more than me.”
Still, the junior forward ended up with 12 points on the night, second on the team only to Klinkhammer’s 16.
Before yielding a final 7-0 Pine Bluffs run, Kimball’s Kelly Green answered the hosts’ defensive intensity with a blocked shot and a three pointer.
“I thought coach Smith would be mad,” she said of the block—Green drew a foul a fraction of a second after slapping the ball away. “It’s hard to get a big head about it.”
