By Shane PalmquistThe boys basketball team had three tough tasks last week. Task 1 was to avenge an earlier loss to Edgerton. Task 2 was to knock off Marshall the seventh-ranked team in Class 3A ball. Task 3 was to get the sweep on Southwest Conference rival Pipestone. Luverne didn’t quite get the sweep but they weren’t swept either.LUVERNE 75, PIPESTONE 63After dropping two in a row, the Luverne boys basketball team was looking for some redemption, and the unfortunate Pipestone Arrows were next on the Cardinal schedule. Luverne didn’t look like it had a chance after the opening tip, and it fell behind fast as Pipestone took off to a 17-0 lead to open up the game. Brad Herman came off the bench to try and stop the bleed, and he did just that, giving his teammates the spark they needed to tie the game at 25 with 3:14 to go in the first half. "We got down early, using time outs to try and slow them down, but it didn’t work as they were making everything early," said Coach Tom Rops. "Herman came in to the game, and we started to go down low, which opened everything else up for us."Luverne started matching Pipestone shot for shot to close out the first half, and the Arrows limped into the locker room looking dumb-founded with only a 37-32 lead. A more confident Cardinal team came out to open up the second half. Playing tough defense and a tight full-court press seemed to have Pipestone a bit puzzled throughout the rest of the game. Herman and Brandon Deragisch led Luverne with 19 points each, Jake Hendricks chipped in 16 points and three steals, Nick Heronimus also finished in double digits, too, with 10. Herman led the team in rebounds with 6, while Deragisch shot an impressive 12-13 from the free throw line. Dusty Antoine wasn’t a scoring threat as much as a passing threat and ended the game with five assists."The key for was balance, as we got four guys in double digits, so it wasn’t one guy; it was a whole team effort," said Rops. "This was a big win for our program, not just from a conference standpoint but for this program as a whole. Sweeping Pipestone hasn’t happened for a long time so this is good."Luverne’s key play which swung the momentum all the way to their side happened in the third period. Pipestone was trying to bring the ball up the court, senior Herman stole the ball at half court, and with no defenders in sight threw down a monstrous two-handed dunk that drove the Cardinal fans wild. Whatever wind was left in the Arrows sails fizzled after that play. Luverne kicked its game into high gear in the fourth quarter playing solid ball on both sides of the court and not letting Pipestone make any sort of comeback. Herman sealed it for Luverne with two minutes to go. Luverne forced another turnover, Herman took a pass at half-court, and with two-hands elevated above the rim, jammed it home. With that, Luverne beat Pipestone for the second time this year and improved its record to 11-4, 5-2 in conference play. Luverne got to the free-throw line 32 times, converting 24 of them. Pipestone only had one free-throw attempt before getting there five more times in the last minute and a half.MARSHALL 72, LUVERNE 42Luverne ran into a buzz saw Friday night as the visiting Marshall Tigers took it to the host Cardinals. Marshall came out with lots of fastbreak points and tough defense cleaning the glass, allowing Luverne to get only one shot for each trip down the court."We were totally outmatched, and we couldn’t really stop them on defense." said Coach Rops. "Marshall is probably the best team in the conference right now." Brad Herman’s 11 points and five rebounds were tops for Luverne. Brandon Deragisch scored eight of his own to help the host team."We have to forget about our last couple games and move ahead. Our goal now is to take care of our conference games to get a high seed come playoffs." Rops said.EDGERTON 58, LUVERNE 54Luverne played host to Edgerton public last Thursday. Luverne tried to avenge an earlier loss to Edgerton but to no avail. The Cardinals couldn’t buy a basket in the first quarter and found themselves down early as Edgerton took a commanding 22-6 to close out the first quarter.We didn’t come out with the intensity at the start like we needed," said Coach Rops.Rops wasn’t about to let his team go down without a fight, and Luverne came out hot early in the second quarter led by the lights out three-point shooting from Dusty Antoine and Brandon Deragisch to close the gap to 39-30 at halftime. The Cardinals kept reeling the visiting Dutchmen in all the way through the second half and for the first time all game took the lead away at 54-53 with less than one minute remaining. Edgerton’s Jordan Menning drained a 15 footer to retake the lead 55-54. Luverne had a couple more chances to win the game but both shots rimmed out. Two late free throws iced the game for Edgerton.Rops said, "We fought and clawed our way back, but we just couldn’t get the last shots to fall."Jake Hendricks led Luverne in scoring finishing up with 16. Brad Herman and Dusty Antoine chipped in 10 each; with Brad Herman grabbing five rebounds for Luverne.