The Luverne Cardinal boys’ basketball team opened the 2021-22 campaign with two losses over the past week.
The Cardinals hosted the Jackson County Central Huskies Dec. 7 and came up eight points short, falling 48-40.
On Saturday Luverne faced Fairmont in Pipestone and lost 55-35.
The Luverne Cardinals were next scheduled to play the Hills-Beaver Creek Patriot boys in Hills Tuesday night, Dec. 14. Results of that game will appear in next week’s edition.
The Cardinals host the Marshall Tigers Thursday, Dec. 16, and the Redwood Valley Cardinals Friday night before having two weeks off for the Christmas holiday break.
JCC 48, Luverne 40
Luverne opened its season by hosting Jackson County Central as part of a girls’-boys’ doubleheader Tuesday, Dec. 7.
The Cardinals started with a strong first half, building a 15-7 lead over JCC with about eight minutes remaining in the first stanza.
The Huskies then went on a 10-0 run to take the 17-15 lead with four minutes left in the half. At halftime the Huskies led the game 24-22.
In the second half, neither team scored for the first five-plus minutes.
JCC then slowly built a lead up to eight points, which was its largest lead, a few different times in the second half.
With five minutes left in the game, Luverne got to within two points, 39-37, but that was as close as the Cardinals could get. The game ended as a 48-40 victory for JCC.
“I was happy with our team’s effort,” Luverne head coach John Sichmeller said. “Defensively we did a good job for the most part.”
“We just couldn’t get any shots to fall, and that was the difference in the game,” Sichmeller added.
Luverne shot just 33 percent overall from the field, making 56 percent of two-point shots and just 17 percent from behind the three-point line.
Offensively Luverne was led by senior starters Casey Sehr and Connor Overgaard, both with 12 points in the game.
Senior Nathaniel Cole-Kraty tallied seven rebounds for the Cardinals.
Fairmont 55, Luverne 35
The Luverne Cardinals and the Fairmont Cardinals met Saturday afternoon in Pipestone in an early season Big South Conference crossover game.
The Cardinals of Fairmont came away with the twenty-point victory, 55-35.
Luverne scored the first points of the game and maintained small leads until six minutes remained in the first half when Fairmont took a 13-12 lead.
Luverne scored just one point for the remainder of the half, and Fairmont led 28-13 at halftime.
In the second half Fairmont maintained and enhanced its lead. Luverne did score 22 points in the second half, but Fairmont’s 27 second-stanza points assured its victory.
Overall, LHS coach Sichmeller found some positives in his team’s early season efforts.
“We did a lot of nice things defensively,” Sichmeller said.
“They (Fairmont) had a lot of size down low and are a very physical team so it was good for our guys to go against that.”
Nathaniel Cole-Kraty and Eli Radtke led the Cardinals with eight points each. Tyson Cowell added seven points for Luverne.
Connor Overgaard tallied nine rebounds in the contest, while Cole-Kraty pulled in seven boards and recorded four steals.