Lady Longhorns 4-2 at the break

A loss and a win to close out the season before the christmas break for the Kimball High Lady Longhorns leaving them with a record of 4 wins and 2 losses as they prepare to open the 2014 portion of the season. The Kimball ladies went up against a very good Hershey club in a home court Friday night contest and found out why the Lady Panthers were unbeaten and ranked #6 in the state rankings of C-l. Kimball played a bit frustrated and perhaps intimidated as they struggled with 15 first-half turn overs, and shot a meager 4/23 from the field by half time to trail 23-13 and a long trey ball by Jessica Hanks kept it that close.

Coach Chauncey Pedersen went to his bench in the second half fielding a team of sophomores and Arica McCloud made back-to-back assists to Danika Daum to provide a bit of spark. Not too many bright spots but foul shooting was certainly a positive as they connected on 14 of 18 including 7/8 in the fourth period with Hanks going 5/6. Daum ended up with 15 points and was 6/6 at the line. She also pulled 9 rebounds, had 2 blocks and 2 steals. Hanks had 8 points, Kelly Green 3, Madison Biesecker 2, and Shelby Vogel 2. .

In final team stats, Kimball was 7/43 from the field going 2/10 on trey attempts, 14/18 at the line, had 24 rebounds, 6 steals, 2 assists and 3 blocked shots. They held their fouls to 7 but had 22 turnovers. Hershey had 27 rebounds, were 3/7 at the line, 14/39 on 2 pointers and 6/13 on 3 pointers. Tayler Baker, a 5'7" senior sharp shooter hit 5 treys and led the winners with 22 points.

Coach Pedersen was curious how his girls would respond after the loss to Hershey on Friday night, but they bounced back for a win at Bayard on Saturday in a hard fought battle that went right down to the final buzzer to determine the outcome with Kimball prevailing 39-35.

It was tied at 10-10 at the quarter break with Vogel hitting a early trey to get the lid off the basket and Hanks nailing a 11 footer to put Kimball ahead. Vogel had a 9 point second quarter and had 12 points at half time as the Lady Longhorns surged to a 25-17 margin by intermission. Vogel scored all of Kimball's 4 points in the third period as Bayard closed to 29-27 to enter the final period of play. Kimball held a meager 2 point lead with :30 seconds remaining when Brooke Hager went to the foul line and made the front end of a one and one foul shot to put Kimball up 38-35. With :20 seconds left, Kelly Green came up with a key steal, but Bayard got it back a second later. Hager pretty much iced the game with :10 seconds left when she hit yet another free throw for the final scoring and the 39-35 victory. Coach Pedersen said "An ugly win is better than a loss, isn't it"?

Vogel led Kimball with 16 points followed by Daum with 9, Green 7 plus 4 steals, Hanks 4 along with 7 rebounds, and Hager 3 plus 5 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 steals.

Brianna Jones had 3 assists and 2 steals, and Laura Flores 3 steals and an assist.

In team stats, Kimball had 12 fouls, 27 turnovers, were 7/14 at the line, 15/43 from the field going 2/12 on three point attempts, had 19 rebounds but only 6 defensive, 15 steals and 10 assists. Bayard won the rebound battle with 28, shot 7/9 at the line, and 14/47 from the field going 0/5 on treys. Megan Stuart led the Lady Tigers with 10 points, Haley Sauer had 8, Rachel Frerichs 6, Kaylie Fiscus 5, Miah Vera 4, and Chellani Parriott 2.

The Lady Longhorns return to the hardwoods on January 7 when they host Mitchell for games at 5 and 6:30. A busy week as they open up the 2014 season traveling to Sidney on January 9 and to Pine Bluffs on January 10.