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HARTINGTON - Hartington- Newcastle turned away Tri County Northeast here Jan. 16 with a 53-36 win over the Wolfpack to break a three-game slide and improve to 8-5 on the season.
“I thought we came out and did some nice things in this game,” Lady Wildcat coach, Grant Rolfes said. “Tri County has a couple of young, talented players and I thought we defended pretty well and made things tough on their offense, especially in the second half.”
The Wolfpack led after the first period 8-6 and the Lady Wildcats switched it around in the second eight minutes to take an 18-17 lead into the halftime locker room.
Hartington-Newcastle broke away in the third quarter, just as Rolfes stated, and led by 13 heading into the final quarter after outscoring TCNE 22-10 in the frame.
A 13-9 advantage in the fourth got the game to the final score.
Vayda Lippert led three Lady Wildcats in double figures with 19 points. Maddie Steffen added 17 and McKenzie Bruning tossed in 13.
“Balanced scoring is always nice,” the coach said. “Vayda had probably her best game of the season and McKenzie and Maddie all three being in double digits is always a good thing. I also felt we rebounded much better, which was an area of focus in practice lately.”
Steffen just missed a doubledouble adding nine rebounds to her stat line, Bruning pulled down seven and also handed out five assists and swiped six steals.
The Lady Wildcats opened the new week with another win over Neligh-Oakdale Jan. 20. A complete recap of that game will appear in next week’s Cedar County News.
HNS was set to travel down to take on Laurel-Concord-Coleridge in Laurel Jan. 21 before hosting Crofton on Jan. 24.
The Lady Wildcats will hit the road to take on Plainview on Jan. 28.
TCNE (5-9) 8 9 10 9 — 36 HNS (8-5) 6 12 22 13 — 53
HNS: Vayda Lippert 7-15 0-0 19; Hazel Hochstein 0-2 0-0 0; Alejandra Reyes 0-2 0-0 0; Karissa Bruning 0-1 0-0 0; Ella Eickhoff 1-5 0-0 3; McKenzie Bruning 6-13 2-6 14; Maddie Steffen 6-15 4-5 17.
