The Luverne Cardinals boys’ basketball team came up short against the Pipestone Area Arrows and Southwest Minnesota Christian Eagles.
The Cardinals, now 1-8 on the season, lost 65-45 in Pipestone Jan. 11 before falling 77-68 to the Eagles in Luverne Monday night.
Luverne is scheduled to play in Adrian tonight (Jan. 20) before traveling to Williams Arena in Minneapolis Friday night to play Belle Plaine and then hosting St. James Area Monday night.
The Cardinals’ game vs. Jackson County Central scheduled for Jan. 14 was postponed to Feb. 18 due to a snowstorm last week.
Pipestone Area 65, Luverne 45
It was a tough night all around for the Luverne Cardinals when they traveled to Pipestone to face the Arrows Tuesday, Jan. 11.
The Cardinals scored the first two points of the game and held a 9-7 lead after seven minutes.
A three-pointer by Pipestone then gave the Arrows a 10-9 lead that they would retain for the remainder of the contest.
The Arrows, who scored 61 percent from the field overall, outscored Luverne 31-26 in the first half and 34-19 in the second half. The Cardinals shot just 43 percent from the field.
Gannon Ahrendt led Luverne with 18 points, including three 3-pointers. Casey Sehr added eight points.
Connor Overgaard totaled six rebounds, and Nathaniel Cole-Kraty had four.
Box score:
Cole-Kraty 3 0 0-2 6, Schoeneman 1 1 1-1 6, Cowell 0 0 0-0 0, Sehr 1 1 3-4 8, Friedrichsen 1 0 0-0 2, Ahrendt 3 3 3-5 18, Overgaard 2 0 1-6 5
Team stats
Luverne: 16 of 37 (43 percent), 8 of 18 free throws (44 percent), 16 rebounds, 13 turnovers
Pipestone: 28 of 46 (61 percent), 3 of 4 free throws (75 percent), 27 rebounds, 13 turnovers
SWC 77, Luverne 68
In a game that was much closer than the final score showed, Luverne had one of its best games of the season so far in a 77-68 loss to the Southwest Minnesota Christian Eagles in the Luverne Classic Gym Jan. 17.
The Eagles, now 10-3 on the season, took an early lead that they maintained for the first 23 minutes of game time, but the score was close throughout most of the game.
SWC led 38-34 at half-time.
In the second half, Luverne tied the game 48-48 with a three-pointer by Colin Schoeneman with 12:15 remaining in the game.
Schoeneman drained four three-pointers in the contest and ended with 14 points.
Two minutes later, another three-pointer by Schoeneman gave the Cardinals their first lead of the night, 53-52, with 10:24 remaining.
Luverne’s largest lead of the night was five points after Schoeneman and Gannon Ahrendt dropped consecutive three-pointers to give the Cards a 59-54 advantage with 8:20 on the clock.
Ahrendt led the Cardinals with 20 points. Connor Overgaard scored 13 points and collected four rebounds.
The Eagles quickly tied the game again at 59 before Casey Sehr scored to give Luverne its final lead of the game, 61-59.
A three-pointer by the Eagles gave them a 62-61 lead they would not relinquish.
A dunk by Ahrendt with 4:30 remaining kept the Cardinals within two points at 66-64, but Southwest benefited from a series of late Luverne turnovers to quickly build a 12-point lead with under a minute remaining.
A late three-pointer by Luverne's Tyson Cowell brought the final score to 77-68.
Overall, Luverne head coach John Sichmeller was pleased with his team’s effort against the talented Eagles squad.
“We had our best offensive game of the year,” he said.
“We put ourselves in a position to beat a very good team, but in the end our turnovers got us.”
Box score:
Cole-Kraty 2 0 0-0 4, Schoeneman 1 4 0-0 14, Cowell 0 1 0-0 3, Sehr 2 0 0-0 4, Radtke 4 0 2-4 10, Ahrendt 7 1 3-5 20, Overgaard 5 0 3-6 13
Team stats:
Luverne: 27 of 46 (59 percent), 8 of 15 free throws (53 percent), 10 rebounds, 6 turnovers
SWC: 32 of 56 (57 percent), 7 of 9 free throws (78 percent, 9 rebounds, 8 turnovers