Kimball girls fall to Bridgeport and Gordon-Rushville

The Lady Longhorns are having a hard time putting points on the scoreboard as they suffered two weekend losses on their home court and have lost their last 5 games to leave them with a record of 4 wins and 7 losses after a 3-1 start to the season. The Lady Longhorns fells to the Bridgeport ladies 67-28 on Friday evening and then dropped a Saturday evening contest with Gordon-Rushville 58-26.

The Bridgeport Lady Bulldogs came off the bus ready to play and they stampeded past the Lady Horns with 30 first period points, while holding the Kimball girls to just 6 in that time frame. At half-time they were on top 44-12, led 57-22 after 3 quarters of play and coasted to the win.

The Lady Bulldogs took advantage of the 32 Kimball turnovers, turning most of them into points for themselves. The winners shot the ball well from all over the court and went an amazing 18/22 at the foul line.

Coach Bryan Schluterbusch said, “This was the best we have played this season,” when asked about his thoughts of the win He went to his bench and got solid play from a lot of different players with 10 getting into the scoring column. Brittney Newkirk led the winners with 16 points, hitting 2 treys. Brittany Nelson tallied

15 with 2 treys. Emily Baxter and Kaitlyn Nein had 7 each, Cassied Leithead 6, Karissa Benavidew, Grace Dobrinski and Arista Mancias all 4 each. Sydney Nein 3 and Kyler Watts 1.

No one in double scoring for Kimball, led by Freshman Sydney Biesecker with 9, including 1 trey. Carli Wurdeman hit a trey and had 7 points Lacey Klinnkhammer 4, Madison Wynne 3, Emma Martin 3 and

Hannah Biesecker was top rebounded with 5, while Sydney Biesecker charted 4 along with a team high 3 steals.

Bridgeport 30 14 13 10—67

Kimball 6 6 10 6—28

After the tough Friday night loss, the Kimball girls had a good start Saturday night against the Gordon-Rushville Lady Mustangs and led 9-6 at the quarter break with 5 girls scoring in that time period. It was a complete surprise to all the Kimball fans to see senior Alex Reader in the starting lineup after reinsuring her knee that

cost her a complete junior season after undergoing major surgery. After 6 games this season, she was diagnosed that she had torn her ACL and would need yet another surgery. After sitting out the last few games, she made the decision to go ahead, with help of a sturdy knee brace, and give it a try. Her doctors informed her she could go this route if she chose, as she will still need the surgery.

Reader contributed a 15 foot jumper during the first period to help the Lady Horns get going, but sat our the majority of the contest when it started to get out of hand. The Lady Mustangs outscored Kimball 24-9 in the second period to lead 30-18 at half-time, led by a 12-point quarter by Jacob Knight. It was more of the same in

the third period with Kimball getting outscored 20-4.

Knight led all scorers with 19 points. Callie Shultz had 16 for the winners and Sierra Garrett finished with 8.

Both teams had 8 players in the scoring column with Carli Wurdeman high for Kimball with 7, including 1 trey. Justine Heeg had 5, Jenna Greenwood 4, Madison Wynne 2, Sydney Biesecker 2, Hannah Biesecker 2, Alex Reader 2 and Megan Spicer 2.

It was another night of too many turnovers with 34 miscues by the Lady Horns. The passing by Kimball as very careless and off target. Kimball pulled 21 rebounds with Heeg high with 6.

Kimball received the number 4 seed for this week’s SPVA Tournament by virtue of their good start early in the season and was to host Chase County, the number 5 seed, this past Monday evening. After first round play at the seeded home sites, play would move to the North Platte Community College this evening (Thursday) and

continue through Saturday. On Tuesday (January 23), Kimball will host the unbeaten and number two ranked Class C-1 Mitchell Lady Tigers for girl’s games only with a 4 p.m. start time for the JV game, followed by the varsity game.

Kimball 9 9 4 4—26

Gordon-Rushville 6 24 20 8—58