Lady Longhorns fourth at SPVA tourney

The Kimball High girls wound up 4th at the SPVA Tournament held at the North Platte Community College this past week.

As reported in last week's sports, the Kimball ladies won their first round game with Perkins County 52-31 to advance them into the semi finals against C-l state ranked Hershey where they lost 48-27, and in the consolation finals for third-fourth, the Lady Horns lost 56-51 to a very solid Sutherland team.

"Hershey is ranked #3 in C-l for a reason" said coach Chauncey Pedersen. The Panthers came out fast and strong and never let up enroute to their 21 point win over Kimball using their talent and depth as 8 girls scored for them. Early Kimball was missing shots and Hershey was making shots as they got out to an 18-7 first quarter lead. Kimball battled back in the second period to close to 22-16 by half time, but a 21 point fourth period by the Lady Panthers put the game away.

Kimball shot 8/30 from the field and were 0/7 on treys, 11/17 at the foul line, had 9 fouls, 25 rebounds, 3 assists, 8 steals, and 21 turnovers. Danika Daum led Kimball scoring with 10 and rebounds with 8. Kelly Green and Jessica Hanks had 4 points each with Green high in steals with 3. Shelby Vogel had 3, Laura Flores, Arica MCCloud, and Brooke Hager all with 2 each. This was the second meeting of the two teams and the second loss to the talented Hershey ball club.

Kimball 07 09 02 09 -- 27

Hershey 18 04 05 21 -- 48

The loss to Sutherland was a tale of two halves with the winners on top 38-23 at half time while Kimball out scored the Lady Sailors 28-18 in the second half. Three players in double figure scoring for the Lady Longhorns led by Shelby Vogel with 19, Kelly Green 15, and Danika Daum 12. Jessica Hanks contributed 5.

Vogel was 6/7 at the line and nailed 1 trey. She also pulled 6 rebounds, had 4 steals and an assist. Green made a charge at the school record of treys in a game as she nailed 5 of the shots from behind the arc. Hannah Stull holds the school mark at 6 in a game. After hitting her fifth trey in the third period, Kelly suffered a hard fall battling for a rebound that took her out of the game for a time and perhaps hampered her chance at equaling the school record. Daum also shot well at the line going 4/5 along with 4 rebounds, 2 steals and 1 assist. Hanks hit a trey and was 2/2 at the line plus 4 rebounds.

In team stats Kimball was a very good 12/14 at the foul line, 16/50 from the field including 7/18 on 3 point attempts, had 21 rebounds with 6 offensive, 10 steals, 8 assists, 1 block, 10 fouls, and 24 turnovers.

Sutherland, coached by former Kimball High grad, Jason Gunderson, was 6/12 at the line, 22/57 from the field going 6/20 on 3 pointers, had 30 rebounds, and 13 fouls. Like Kimball, they had 4 players score and 3 in double figures with Sam

Staggs high with 19, Jalyne Schuster 17, Kaley Stokey 13, and Ali Meyer 6.

It was a great second half come back by the Kimball ladies but they were too far down to get the job done.

With the loss they fell to 9-5 on the season with another tough rematch with Mitchell this past Tuesday where they were hoping to avenge the 44-43 loss on the Kimball court on January 7.

This weekend they will host that scrappy and young Pine Bluffs club on Friday and then travel to Bridgeport on Saturday for yet another rematch in a pair of games Kimball won in the first encounters. Next week the Lady Longhorns will move into Western Trails Conference Tournament play where they will be the #3 seed and will host #6 seed Bayard in first round play on February 6 with game time to be announced in next week's Observer sports.

Kimball 11 12 16 12 -- 51

Sutherland 18 20 08 10 -- 56