Lady Longhorns first round winner over Bayard

The Kimball Lady Longhorns achieved one of their goals of their season by winning their first round game in WTC Conference Tournament play by winning over seeded Bayard 44-43 on the Lady Tigers' home court in a Thursday evening contest. The win thus advanced them into weekend play at Cougar Palace in Scottsbluff, while all first round losers were done.

The Lady Longhorns had an almost flawless start at Bayard and raced out to a 12-2 lead with 5 girls getting into the scoring act. After the first period of play, Kimball led 13-8. While Bayard closed the gap and took a 17-15 lead in the second quarter, Lacey Klinkhammer came off the bench and gave Kimball a spark with a pair of baskets from inside and Hannah Biesecker nailed a trey right before the buzzer to keep Kimball on top 22-19 at half-time.

Bayard outscored Kimball 15-12 in the third period, but Hannah Biesecker hit another 3 point fielder to close out the period and knot the score at 34-34 heading into the final quarter of play. Bayard had an 11 point unanswered run to open up the third quarter, but Kimball answered with a 7 point run of their own, led by Biesecker's 7 point quarter.

The fourth period was nip and tuck with Bayard getting the first basket to go up 36-34. Carli Wurdeman answered with a trey to put Kimball back on top 37-36. There was never more than a 3 point difference the rest of the way. Hannah Biesecker made the big plays at the end grabbing a rebound and scoring a put-back basket. With :31 seconds left and Kimball leading 42-41, Klinkhammer missed on her one and one free throw, but Biesecker dove for a rebound ball on the court and tied up with a Bayard player, giving Kimball possession in their own front court. Coach Chauncey Pedersen called time and Carli Wurdeman was fouled on the inbounds play and went to the line and sank a pair of free throws with :19 seconds showing. Bayard got the final basket, but were 1 point shy with the clock showing 44-43 at the final buzzer.

A strong showing by Hannah Biesecker, who was game high scorer with 18, including 2 treys. She shared top rebound honors with Carli Wurdeman with 7. Wurdeman finished with 15 points and had 3 treys, along with her 7 rebounds and game high 4 assists. Lacey Klinkhammer came off the bench to really shine and had 6 points, Madison Wynne and Justine Heeg had 2 each, and Sydney Biesecker had 1 point.

High for Bayard was Lizabeth Marker with 10, Jessica Whitebear and Kylie Stuart had 8 each, Sierra Saurer 7, Grace Burry 6, and Shaley Peterson and Bailee Lake, 2 each.

Kimball 13 9 12 10--44

Bayard 8 11 15 9–-43

The win over Bayard advanced Kimball into semi-final play on Friday against top seeded Mitchell, who drew a first round bye, as they have all season against all comers, keeping their unbeaten record alive at 21-0, with a 78-11 win over Kimball.

Mitchell had 8 players score, led by a very talented Jori Peters, who has signed to play at Chadron State College next season. Miss Peters finished with 27, including 2 treys and the winners tallied 7 treys, including 3 by Kenzey Kanno, and 1 by Annabelle Gillen, with both players ending up with 9.

Mitchell used their press defense late into the game and a running clock was in effect the entire second half of play. Hannah Biesecker with 7 and Jenna Greenwood with 4, did all of Kimball's scoring.

Mitchell 29 28 16 5–78

Kimball 3 2 2 4--11

In bottom bracket play in the first round, Bridgeport won over Hemingford 52-26 and Morrill won over Gordon-Rushville 54-49. Bridgeport then defeated Morrill 56-41 in semi-final action to advance to the championship game with Mitchell, with Mitchell claiming the 2018 Conference Tournament title with a 49-41 win over Bridgeport.

In the consolation finals for 3rd place honors, Kimball lost to Morrill 52-34 with the Lady Horns finishing 4th. It was like the Kimball girls simply were not ready to go when they took the court Saturday and quickly fell behind 9-0 and were down 12-4 at the quarter break. Too many bad passes and too many bad hands in handling passes, created too many turnovers.

The young Morrill team, led by several talented freshmen players, were up 24-10 at half-time, and then started the third period with a 16 point unanswered run, and held Kimball to just 4 points in the third period. Kimball finally played like they are capable of in the fourth period, outscoring the Lady Lions 20 to 10, but again, too little, too late.

Morrill was led by Llycia Guerue, freshman daughter of Coach Josh Guerue, with 19 points, including 3 treys. Peyton Gibson had 10 and Libbie Schaefer 9 for Morrill.

In team stats, Kimball had 34 rebounds, but Morrill pulled 41. Kimball also shot a mere 4/13 at the foul line for 31% and were 23% from the field. They had 10 steals, 10 assists, 25 turnovers, and 23 fouls.

Hannah Bisecker was high for Kimball with 8 points and shared top rebound honors with Justine Heeg with 6 each. Megan Spicer had 6 points, Heeg 5 with 1 trey, Jenna Greenwood 4, Carli Wurdeman 3 with 1 trey, Lacey Klinkhammer 4, Sydney Biesecker and Sam Bemis both 2 points. Sydney Biesecker had 4 assists and Madison Wynne, 3 steals.

Kimball is now 5-14 on the season and will close out the regular season at home tomorrow evening

(Friday), hosting Hemingford before moving into sub-district play this Tuesday at Gering, where it appears they will face Bayard, with Bridgeport the number 1 seed going against Hemingford in the other Tuesday night game.

Morrill 12 12 18 10-52

Kimball 4 6 4 20---34