Kimball Girls Fall To Hershey, Top Bayard

The Kimball High girls had a strong weekend of play as they finished out the pre-Christmas part of their basketball schedule. They lost on the road Friday night to a very talented Hershey club 58-56, and then won on the road Saturday night at Bayard 51-46.

Coach Chauncey Pedersen said, "We shot the ball a lot better this past weekend and our play, especially at Hershey, was very good. We came very close to getting the win at Hershey against a team that played Ogallala the next night to within 1 point. I feel good about our play as we break for the Holidays, but we have a really tough schedule ahead of us when we resume play after the break".

Kimball had their best shooting night of the season so far at Hershey shooting 53% from the field converting 21 of 40 attempts and they were 9/17 on 3 point attempts as well for 53%!

The stats were not as good at the foul line where they made only 5 of 12 free throws for 42% and this hurt their cause.

Still more turnovers than coach Pedersen would like with 21 in the loss. Kimball pulled 24 rebounds but only 5 offensive, had 10 steals, 10 assists, and 17 fouls.

A very good night for junior guard Megan Spicer who led Kimball scoring with 21 points as she was 10/15 from the field going 1/1 on treys. Sydney Biesecker in double figures with 17 points going 5/8 from the field and was 4/6 on 3 point shots along with 3/5 at the foul line. Sam Bemis had 8 points and 2 treys, Carli Wurdeman 7 points and 2 treys, Jenna Greenwood 2, Katie Heeg 1.

Good balanced rebounding, like the scoring, led by Wurdeman with 5 and the senior guard also was high in assists with 4. Biesecker, Greenwood, Heeg, and Spicer all had 4 rebounds each. Both teams were nailing the long ball and both teams charted 9 treys but Hershey hit some of their key treys late to secure the win. Hershey was also 11/21 at the line to make the difference in winning or losing. T. Steinbeck led the winners with 20 points and 4 treys, S Vaugher had 10 with 2 treys, and D Roberts 9 with 3 treys.

Kimball 17 3 19 17 – 56

Hershey 7 12 19 20 – 58

Kimball 51, Bayard 46

The Lady Longhorns had another strong start in their game at Bayard jumping out to a 15-8 lead at the quarter and were on top by 15 at half time leading 29-14. They needed that 15 point lead it would prove out as Bayard took control in the third period to outscore Kimball 12-4 and outscored the Kimball girls 32-22 in the second half.

In the closing minutes of play coach Pedersen used all of his time outs to keep his team on track and they got the job done for the win.

Another good night of shooting for Kimball as they were 16/37 from the field for 43%, 5/11 from 3 point range for 45%, and only 12/28 at the foul line for 43%.

Bayard would take 23 more shots than the Lady Horns but shot only 25%. Bayard also won the battle on the boards with 33 rebounds to Kimball's 22.

Good balanced scoring again for Kimball led by Carli Wurdeman and Megan Spicer with 15 points each. Spicer scored 10 points in the first iuarter and had 1 trey. Wurdeman had 2 treys for the game, Sydney Biesecker ended with 9 points and 1 trey, Greenwood, Heeg, and Bemis would all score 4 points each.

Wurdeman was high in rebounds with 6 and steals with 4 trailing only Spicer with 5 in this department. Greenwood ended with 4 rebounds while Biesecker, Payton Wise, and Spicer all charted 3 rebounds. Spicer also led in assists with 3.

Bayard had 7 players in the scoring columns with 3 in double figures led by Hailey Cochran with 12, Rylee Sharp 10, and Grace Burry with 11.

Kimball 15 14 4 18 – 51

Bayard 8 6 12 20 – 46

JV Girls Split Weekend Play

The Kimball JV girls suffered a big loss at Hershey losing 62-16 but had their best outing of the season at Bayard winning 26-22 in 3 quarters of play. At Hershey Payton Wise led with 6 points with Charlotte Hargreaves and Amy Birkhofer with 4 eqch and Halsey Clark with 2. At Bayard, Wise had 14 points with 1 trey, Chantel Malson 5 with 1 trey, Birkhofer 3, Madison Merryfield 2, and Jayden Paxton 1.

After Christmas break, Kimball returns to action at South Platte on January 7th and hosts Chase County on January 11.