By John RittenhouseThe Luverne boys opened the 2005-06 basketball season by registering a 59-49 come-from-behind victory over Southwest Christian Thursday at home.After falling behind 10-2 early and facing an 18-9 deficit at the 8:49 mark of the first half, things looked gloomy for the defending Section 3AA champs.The Cards, however, battled back to outscore SWC 50-31 the rest of the night to prevail by 10 points."The kids were working hard in the first half, we just weren’t getting the results," said LHS coach Rops."At halftime we decided that we had to slow things down offensively because we were over-penetrating. Instead of driving with the ball, we let our screens work to get open shots."Luverne’s comeback actually started in the first half, when it whittled SWC’s nine-point lead to one (26-25) with a field goal from Tim Miller at the 2:58 mark. Senior Jake Hendricks gave the Cards a 28-26 halftime lead when he hit an off-balance three-point shot at the buzzer.SWC tied the game at 28 early in the second half, but the Cards countered with a 23-5 run capped by a field goal from Derek Boeve with 5:27 remaining to give the hosts their biggest lead of the game at 51-34. SWC couldn’t recover from the run, falling by 10 points in the end."We played a lot better defense in the second half," Rops said. "We created some turnovers and scored some easy points off them."Boeve, who netted 11 points in the second half, led the winners with 18 counters. He also charted two assists, as did Nick Heronimus. Marc Boelman added 10 points to the cause.Box scoreBruynes 0 0 0-0 0, Ward 1 0 0-0 2, Haakenson 0 0 2-2 2, Boomgaarden 0 0 0-0 0, Boelman 5 0 0-1 10, Miller 2 1 0-0 7, Hendricks 0 2 3-4 7, Uphoff 0 0 0-0 0, Sawtelle 0 0 0-0 0, Stegemann 0 0 0-0 0, Boeve 6 0 6-9 18, Heronimus 2 0 0-1 4, Clark 2 1 0-0 7.Team statisticsLuverne: 23 of 54 field goals (43 percent), 11 of 17 free throws (65 percent).SWC: 18 of 45 field goals (40 percent), 10 of 17 free throws (59 percent).