Kimball girls fall to Sutherland 56-33 in SPVA play

Hershey claimed the championship of the girl's division of this year's SPVA Conference Basketball Tournament with a 36-32 win over top seeded North Platte St. Pat's. Chase County ended up third with their 45-39 win over Bridgeport, and the Kimball Lady Longhorns were sixth in the 7 school field, losing to Sutherland 56-33 in Saturday play. As reported in last week's Observer Sports, the Lady Horns lost their first round game to Chase County 61-39.

Kimball had a good first half against Sutherland and trailed 25-22 at intermission but the Lady Sailors took over in the second half to coast to the win. Kimball had 8 girls score with Carli Wurdeman, shown above, high with 8 including two treys. Justine Heeg had 6 with one trey, Hannah Biesecker six, Jenna Greenwood four, Lacey Klinkhammer four Madison Wynne two Sydney Biesecker two and Megan Spicer one. The Lady Horns shot 9/30 on two point field goals, were 3/18 on three pointers and 6/8 at the foul line. The winners shot very good according to coach Chauncey Pedersen and were 6/6 at the line. They were led by their shooting guard who had five treys by herself.

"We need to get out front more aggressive on defense and stop their outside shooting. We need to cut down our own turnovers although were were charted at 15, and that is not real bad," said Pedersen. "A good thing is we are getting a lot of girls some playing time."

With the loss, Kimball is now 4-9 in the win/loss department and was to face the undefeated and state ranked Mitchell girls this past Tuesday on the home court. This weekend they will host Sutherland on Friday evening with JV game times set for 3:30 p.m. followed by the girl's varsity and the boy's varsity game at 5 and 6:30. Tomorrow night is a special night as the public is invited to attend free of charge.

"We want to give a boost to our fan attendance and hope to get a good turnout for our players," said Activities Director Ken Smith.

It will also be TeamMates Mentor Recognition Night and the Knights of Columbus will be holding a spaghetti feed.

Come dressed in red and white and come hungry. On Saturday the Kimball teams will play at North Platte St. Pat's with the girls JV game set for 1 p.m. followed by the boys JV at 2:30, girl's varsity at 4 and boys varsity at 5:30.

Kimball 11 11 7 4 – 33

Sutherland 15 10 17 14 - 56