Mitchell Girls Run Past Kimball 71-15, suffer losses to Sutherland and St. Pats

No surprise that the Kimball girls lost to visiting Mitchell this past week, and no surprise that they won easily, as the Lady Tigers are undefeated on the season and ranked number 2 in the state class C-1 rankings. They ran past the Kimball Lady Longhorns 71-15 and despite the lopsided score, they run up these kind of figures on most everyone they go up against.

It was a big night for Mitchell's big post player with 6'2" junior Keyana Wilfred putting on a show for the fans, and for the Colorado State coaches who were there to watch her perform. In the 1st period alone she poured in 17 points as her team rushed out to a 25-6 lead. By halftime, she had 25 of her game high 29 points and she ended up going 7/7 at the foul line. The Lady Tigers led 49-10 at half-time and when Wilfred scored the opening basket of the second half, Mitchell was leading 51-10 and the game went to the running clock dictated by any team ahead by 40 or more points in second half play, and the running clock was used the entire second half.

Mitchell did not make a single 3 point field goal and they didn't need to go to the long ball. Senior guard, Jori Peters, who has already signed to play at Chadron State College next year, also hit double figure scoring with 17. Mitchell is solid all through their lineup and they shot 23/30 at the foul line as Kimball whistled for 19 fouls in their attempt to shut down the Tigers. Mitchell had 8 players score on the night and held their own fouls to just 8.

Although Wilfred is just a junior, she has already attracted a lot of major college attention and the week prior Wyoming coaches had made an appearance to let her know they are interested. Mitchell has only 2 seniors on their roster so the Tigers will be strong again next season with 3 starters back and a very good junior varsity to add depth.

In the junior varsity game, Mitchell prevailed 56-17. Jenna Greenwood was high for Kimball with 6, Samantha Bemis had 3, Sydney Biesecker, Brooklin Golding, Raven Johnson, and Carli Wurdeman all had 2 points.

Mitchell 25 24 16 6 - 71

Kimball 6 4 0 5 - 15

The Kimball High Lady Longhorns suffered losses to Sutherland and North Platte St. Pats over the weekend and are now 4 and 11 record-wise as they head into this week's WTC Conference Tournament.

In front of the home crowd Friday night with Sutherland 37-23 in what coach Chauncey Pedersen termed "A very disappointing effort," and lost at North Platte Saturday 64-43 in a game coach Pedersen said 'Was a much better effort."

It was a very low scoring affair on Friday night with Sutherland up 6-4 at the quarter break and on top 13-7 at half-time. The scoring by both clubs picked up slightly in the second half, but nothing to write home about. A highlight of the contest was the free throw shooting of the Lady Sailors as they went 14/18 from the foul line compared to 3/11 for Kimball. Erica Hopping led the winners with 13 points and was 9/11 from the charity stripe.

Carli Wurdeman was high for Kimball with 7 points including 1 trey. Hannah Biesecker had 5, Megan Spicer 4, Justine Heeg 3 with her trey, Sydney Biesecker 2, and Jenna Greenwood and Sam Bemis with 1 each. Kimball shot a very low 20 percent from the field and 27 percent from the foul line. They did pull 29 rebounds, had 8 steals, 5 assists, and 15 turnovers. Top individual rebounders were Heeg with 8 and Bemis with 7. Hannah Biesecker led in steals with 3.

Coach Jason Gunderson's Sutherland's squad is loaded with 8 seniors, 4 of whom start, while Kimball has only 2 seniors on their roster.

Sutherland 6 7 14 10 - 37

Kimball 4 3 9 7 - 23

Kimball gave the highly touted Lady Irish a very strong effort in the first half Saturday night trailing 32-27 at half time. They improved their shooting but were still only 12/22 at the line for 55 percent. Kimball had 26 rebounds with Wurdeman and Sydney Biesecker both charted with 5 and Bemis with 4. Megan Spicer had half of the team's steals with 4. Too many turnovers with 29, and fouls with 26.

Coach Pedersen got scoring from 8 players led by a pair of freshman as Bemis and Spicer both had 7 and Bemis nailed a trey. Wurdeman, Heeg, and Hannah Biesecker all had 6 points with Wurdeman and Biesecker both nailing a trey. Sydney Biesecker had 5, Madison Wynne 4, and Lacey Klinkhammer 2.

Pedersen said "If we had gave this same effort on Friday night I feel we would have won that game, but St. Pats is a very good team and we gave them a strong effort." Kimball will travel to Bayard tonight (Thursday) for their first round game in WTC Conference Tournament play with game time set for 5 p.m. The winner will advance to play two more games at Cougar Palalace in Scottsbluff on Friday and Saturday while the loser is done. Early in the season when Kimball was still at full strength, they defeated Bayard 56-47 in a game played at Bayard.

Kimball 12 15 8 8 - 43

St. Pats 19 13 14 18 - 64