Lady Horns Medal In WTC

The Kimball High girls brought home medals from their third place finish in winning the consolation championship at this year's Western Trails Conference Basketball Tournament, completed this past Saturday at Cougar Palace in Scottsbluff.

The Kimball girls started things off with a first round win over Gordon-Rushville,on their home court,defeating the Lady Mustangs 53-41, then lost 74-26 to Mitchell in the semi finals, and won 52-39 over Bayard in the consolation finals.

Kimball 53

GORDON-RUSHVILLE 41

Carli Wurdeman hit a 3 point fielder for the first made-basket in their first round game with Gordon-Rushville and the Lady Horns rushed out to a 10-0 leadJ and were up 14-3 at the quarter break,and went on to handle the Lady Mustangs in a dominating style to avenge an earlier season 41-28 loss on the road. That's a 25 point swing from their first meeting this year.

Coach Chauncey Pedersen said, "We put together four quarters of basketball tonight."

Wurdeman never let up from that first trey. She opened the game with going on to hit 4 of the shots from behind the arc and lead Kimball scoring with 18 points. Kate Reader had another double-double with 12 points and 11 rebounds, and Sydney Biesecker gave Kimball 3 scorers in double figures with her 11, including 1 trey.

Lacey Klinkhammer and Megan Spicer both had 4 points, and Madison Wynne and Jaydin Paxton both finished with 2 each. Wynne also charted 6 rebounds, and Spicer led the team with 7 steals. In team stats, Kimball shot 31% from the field, hitting 17 of 54 attempts, including 5 of 15 3-point tries, and were a solid 14/23 at the line for 61%. They were strong on the boards with 35 rebounds, had 15 steals, 13 assists, 18 fouls, and 23 turnovers.

The stats back up coach Pedersen's claim of completing a full 4 quarters of good play. The win gave the

Kimball ladies 2 more games of tournament play and a trip to Cougar Palace, which eventually led to their consolation championship. Gordon-Rushville was hampered somewhat with some injuries,

but they still gave good effort hitting 4 treys and going 9/14 qt the line and were whistled for 20 fouls. With 7 seniors on the-­roster, they bring a lot of experience. Senior Paige Lynch led the Mustangs with 15 points hitting 3 treys. Jayla Brehmer was also in double figures with 12.

Kimball 14 18 12 9---53

Gordon-Rushville 3 16 4 18---41

MITCHELL 74,

Kimball 26

Mitchell came into the tournament the Number One seed and had a first round bye. With only 1 loss

on their record and ranked Number 2 in the State Class C-1 rankings, they were certainly the heavy favorite to not only win over Kimball, but also to take home top honors, which they did, with a 59-29 win over Bridgeport in the title game.

The Lady Horns held their own for the most part in the 1st quarter of play and despite a lot of bad passes and too many turnovers, were only down 14-9 at the end of the quarter. The Lady Tigers took over at that point however and outscored Kimball 24-2 in the 2nd period and dominated from that point on.

Not a lot of highlights or positive stats for the Kimball club in this contest. They only took 31 shots total and made 10 for 32% and were 3/10 on 3 pointers for 30%. At the foul line they were 3 for 5 and 60%. They finished with just 11 rebounds, had 6 blocks, 12 steals, 7 assists, 14 fouls and 32 turnovers. Sydney Biesecker was high for Kimball with 7 points with 1 trey and was 2/2 at the foul line. Megan Spicer had 5 with 1 trey, Payton Wise had 4 with 1 trey, Kate Reader 4, and Lacey Klinkhammer 2. Spicer was top rebounder with 4. Reader had 5 blocked shots and 5 steals. Mitchell was led by 6'2" senior Keyana Wilfred with 21 points as the Division One recruit took control inside and pulled her share of rebounds. Kenzey Kanno also hit double figures with 11 points and Mitchell had 11 players get into the scoring columns.

Coach Shawn Harvey has 6 seniors on the roster who will be missed, but does have some young talent coming back. The Mitchell girls were also the 2018 Champions.

Mitchell 14 24 22 14---74

Kimball 9 2 9 6---26

Kimball 52,

BAYARD 39

The Kimball girls showed some character in coming back from the devastating semifinal loss,

and Coach Pedersen had them up and ready to battle in their meeting with Bayard for Consolation honors. Megan Spicer hit the first basket of the ball game to get things rolling and it was a 3 pointer. Kate Reader, who had one of her better games of the season, showed she came ready to play and was hitting the boards hard and scored 6 1st quarter points to lead Kimball to a narrow 10-9 margin at the quarter break. It stayed close in the 2nd quarter, but Carli Wurdeman hit a pair of treys and Reader netted 4 more points and Kimball led 23-19 at halftime.

More of the same in the 3rd period with Wurdeman connecting on 2 more treys and scoring 8 points and Reader put in 6 more to leave Kimball on top 38-30 entering the final quarter of play. The Lady Horns took care of business to outscore the Lady Tigers 14-10 in the final stanza for the win and did a good job hitting their free throws going 9 of 10 in the 4th period.

Wurdeman finished with 21 points to take game scoring honors and was 4/7 on treys and 5/7 at the line. Reader wound up with 18 po1nts and 15 rebounds in a strong showing for her double-double. The 5'10" senior also had 2 blocks and 4 steals plus 3 assists. Spicer had 6 points with 1 trey, Biesecker 3, Wynne 2 and Wise 2. Bayard was 7/13 at the line, had 4 treys, and 16 fouls.

Only one player was in double figure scoring for the Tigers with Kylie Stuart ending with 10 points. The win was rewarding for the Kimball girls after the semifinal loss to the talented Mitchell club and also rewarding to coach Pedersen, who handed out the consolation win, 3rd place medals, to all of his girls. It also kept the season record at the .500 mark with 9 wins and 9 losses.

Kimball 10 13 15 14---52

Bayard 9 10 11 10---39

The Lady Longhorns were to host a tall and talented Pine Bluffs team this past Tuesday, and will close out the regular season at Hemingford tomorrow (Friday) with JV game times at 2 p.m. followed by the varsity games.

The girls sub-district play begins on February 11 at Scottsbluff High School with the seedings to be announced later this week. Although not official, it would appear Kimball would meet up again with Bayard on Tuesday evening (February 12) in the second game played.

Kimball 15 12 11 16 – 54

Sutherland 5 7 4 5 – 21

The St. Pats Lady Irish rolled into Kimball ranked number 1 in the State Class D-1 rankings with an 18-0 undefeated record and they left town with 1 more win to add to their lofty record.

Kimball battled hard and gave a good effort against one of the state's best. They trailed 14-8 at the quarter break and were still in range at 31-20 at halftime, but the Lady Horns were outscored each and every period and ended up losing 70-40.

Kimball shot 15/58 from the field for 26%, including 2/17 on 3 point attempts, and were 8/17 at the line for 47%.

They did a good job on the boards with 30 rebounds, had 6 steals, 8 assists, 20 fouls and 22 turnovers.

Kate Reader shot the ball well, connecting on 5 of 7 from the floor and 2 of 3 at the line for 12 points. She also pulled 6 rebounds. Carli Wurdeman finished with 8 points and a team high 7 rebounds. Megan Spicer had 5 points with trey, Madison Wynne 4, Jaydin Paxton 3 with her trey, Sydney Biesecker 4, Payton Wise had 2 points and 5 rebounds, and Lacey Klinkhammer had 2.

The St. Pats girls start 4 seniors and a junior, and their experience shows. They are tall and talented, and their record shows it. Kaleigh Kummer led the Lady Irish with 21 points, hitting 3 treys. Hayley Homan finished with 16, Calli Groseth 12, and Jocylin Sellers 8 – and a total of 8 of their girls got into the scoring act.

The Kimball girls move into Western Trails Conference Tournament play this week and with their number 4 seed will host Gordon-Rushville this evening (Thursday) in play

beginning at 6 p.m. A win will advance them into Friday's semifinal play at Cougar Palace in Scottsbluff, while a loss eliminates them from additional play.

Tonight's winner will go up against top seeded Mitchell, which received a first round bye, and that game will be at 2 p.m. Friday. The tournament play ends up on Saturday at Cougar Palace.

The Kimball girls, and boys, have tough games this coming Tuesday, February 5, when they host Pine Bluffs for a full slate of action beginning at 4 p.m. for JV play.

Kimball 8 12 11 9 – 40

St Pats 14 17 17 22 – 70