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WAYNE - Cedar Catholic used a stingy defense to grab a lead over Winnebago here in the opening round of the Elkhorn Valley Bank Great Northeast Nebraska Shootout at Rice Auditorium.
The Trojans held the Indians to single digits in the first two quarters to establish a 36-14 lead then held on for a 71-49 win.
The score was tied last at 4-4 before Cedar Catholic went up 6-4 on a pass from Jaymison Cattau to a wide open Alex Kuehn for a lay up and after a couple of Kuehn free throws with 3:23 left in the first eight minutes, the Trojans went up 8-4 on the way to a 16-8 lead at the first rest stop.
Heading into the second quarter, the Trojans used a 20-0 run to take the score from 10-8 to 30-8 and never looked back.
Cattau put an exclamation point on the run with a dunk after he stole the ball before the Indians finally scored with 2:44 left before the intermission.
Nolan Becker scored twice inside for four of his game-high 23 points before Ty Thoene received a nifty pass from Kuehn for the Trojan’s 36th and final points of the half.
Winnebago nibbled into the lead in the third quarter by a bucket 2018, but Cedar Catholic closed out the game outscoring the Indians 17-15 in the final stanza to advance to the semifinals of the tournament against long-time Cedar County rival Laurel-Concord-Coleridge on Dec. 29.
The Bears used an overtime win over Pender to grab a pass to play the Trojans.
Winnebago (3-5) 8 6 20 15 - 49 Cedar Catholic (5-2) 16 20 18 17 - 71
CEDAR CATHOLIC: Alex Kuehn 5-8 5-9 15; Jaymison Cattau 2-6 0-0 4; Nolan Becker 10-16 2-4 23; Ty Thoene 4-8 2-2 10; Sam Kuehn 0-3 0-2 0; Mason Baller 2-6 0-0 4; Braeden Reifenrath 103 0-4 2; Aaron Wortmann 1-3 3-4 6; Kighter Wortmann 1-4 0-0 2; Jared Rutar 0-3 1-2 1; Jacob Steffen 1-1 2-2 4.
WINNEBAGO: Howard Bassette 0-3 0-0 0; C. Kearnse 4-9 0-2 8; Braden Brownrigg 3-9 0-0 7; Lavelle Smith 1-10 0-0 2; Timothy LaPointe 7-11 2-2 17; J. Earth 0-2 0-0 0; Rachman Free-Bass 2-8 0-0 4; Santonio Nieman 1-2 0-0 2; Ashton LaPointe 4-13 1-1 9.
