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Cedar, HNS girls advance in their conference tournaments
ATKINSON - The Hartington-Newcastle Lady Wildcats headed west for the opening round of the first-ever Greater Northeast Activities Conference Tournament Feb. 3 as the No. 3-seed.
Hartington-Newcastle took care of business and came away with decisive 47-27 win over the Lady Warriors to advance to the semifinals where the Lady Wildcats will meet the No. 2 seed,. West Holt Feb. 6 in Tilden at Elkhorn Valley.
The last time these two played, the Lady Cats earned a 40-32 decision.
Thursday’s semifinal games will begin with the host Lady Falcons in a 6 p.m. game with Laurel-Concord-Coleridge, with the Lady ‘Cats and Lady Huskies to follow around 7:30 p.m.
The winners of that game will play for the conference crown, at Hartington-Newcastle on Feb. 8 at 6 p.m.
HNS split a couple of regular season games before entering the tournament.
The Lady ‘Cats dropped a 50-40 decision to Winnebago in Hartington Jan. 30 after taking care of Plainview on the road 37-33 Jan. 28.
In the Winnebago game, Hartington-Newcastle had trouble scoring the basketball.
“We competed well outside of a couple of minutes stretch in the third quarter we could never quite recover from,” said Lady Wildcat coach, Grant Rolfes. “”I thought Winnebago made some tough shots at some key moments and we struggled to make ours. Finding a way to consistently limit our turnovers will be a key from here on out.”
The game played out exactly as the coach described. The teams played to a draw, 12-12 at the end of the first eight minutes and the Lady Indians were clinging to a one-point lead at the intermission.
Winnebago doubled-up on the Lady ‘Cats in the third frame, outscoring them 16-8 to take a nine-point lead into the final stanza.
HNS played with the Lady Indians for the final eight minutes, but couldn’t make up any ground to fall by the 10-point margin.
Maddie Steffen paced the Lady Wildcats with 16 points on the evening. Ella Eickhoff yanked down eight rebounds and Karissa Bruning wrestled in six missed shots.
Vayda Lippert added a dozen points. She and Hazel Hochstein, Alejandra Reyes and Steffen with a couple of steals each.
“Steffen had a nice night scoring the basketball,” Rolfes said. “Scoring output wasn’t reflective of it, but I thought Karissa Bruning played well in getting scoring looks, just a tough night on getting shots to fall.”
In the game with the Lady Pirates, the game was close the entire contest.
Plainview had a 7-6 lead after one and a 15-13 advantage at the intermission. The lead grew to 27-23 before the Lady ‘Cats got busy in the final stanza.
When the dust settled on the fourth, frame, Hartington-Newcastle forged a 14-6 advantage of its own during the period and came away with the 37-33 win.
“It was a close game all the way through and a nice fourth quarter got us the win,” said Rolfes. “I thought Vayda Lippert played one of her best offensive games, attacked the basket really well and got herself and her teammates buckets and to the free throw line. We were able to get a key stop or two down the stretch and ice the game from the free throw line. We limited our turnovers which was nice too.”
Lippert finished the game with over half of her team’s points, putting in 20. Steffen finished with 12 points and recorded eight steals, while Hochstein grabbed five offensive rebounds.
After the GNAC Tourney, the Lady Cats will host Wausa Feb. 11.
HNS (11-8) 12 7 8 13 - 40 WINN (7-14) 12 8 16 14 - 50
HNS: Vayda Lippert 4-18 3-4 12; Hazel Hochstein 0-2 3-4 3; Alejandra Reyes 1-4 0-4 2; Ella Eickhoff 1-4 3-8 5; Maddie Steffen 7-14 1-1 16. PLV (1-19) 7 8 12 6 - 33 HNS (11-8) 6 7 10 14 - 37 HNS: Lippert 7-16 6-10 20; Hochstein 1-8 1-2 3; Reyes 0-1 0-0 0; Bruning 0-1 0-0 0;
