Skip to main content

Top-seeded T-M-B rolls over Luverne

By John RittenhouseThe basketball season came to an end for the Luverne Cardinals during the quarterfinal round of South Section 3AA Tournament played in Tracy Tuesday.Taking on No. 1 Tracy-Milroy-Balaton, the eighth-seeded Cardinals played the Panthers to a draw at two in the first five minutes of the game. When the pace started to pick up, T-M-B found a zone of comfort and rolled to s 59-33 win.The loss ends Luverne’s 5-19 season."We wanted to slow things down, and we were pretty effective at it for a while," said Cardinal coach Jason Phelps. "Eventually, we had to become aggressive and start attacking their zone. Once it turned into a fast-paced game, we had trouble keeping up."The pace of the game changed in the final 3:01 of the first quarter, when T-M-B went on an 8-0 run to open a 10-2 lead.Luverne trimmed the difference to seven points at three different occasions in the early stages of the second quarter. T-M-B, however, withstood the challenges and turned 21-11 lead into a 30-11 halftime advantage with a 9-0 run to end the second period.The Cardinals were unable to get back into the game in the second half as the Panthers increased their lead to 29 points (52-23) by the end of the third quarter before settling for a 26-point win at game’s end.Mindy Nieuwboer scored 10 points, nabbed six rebounds and charted three assists for LHS. Samantha Gacke led the Cards with eight rebounds.Box scoreKlein 0 0 0-0 0, Heitkamp 1 0 0-0 2, Nieuwboer 5 0 0-2 10, Snyder 2 0 1-3 5, Peterson 0 0 1-3 1, Kuhlman 1 0 2-2 4, Vogt 0 0 0-0 0, Gacke 2 0 3-6 7, Evans 2 0 0-0 4, Hoiland 0 0 0-0 0.Team statisticsLuverne: 13 of 48 field goals (27 percent), seven of 16 free throws (44 percent), 23 rebounds, 16 turnovers.T-M-B: 24 of 45 field goals (53 percent), five of eight free throws (63 percent), 25 rebounds, 15 turnovers.

You must log in to continue reading. Log in or subscribe today.