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HARTINGTON — With last week’s solid District championship win over Nebraska Christian, the Cedar Catholic Lady Trojans began preparing for a 16th trip to the State Tournament in program history and their fifth trip in the past six years.
Lauren Bernecker is one of five seniors making her third trip to State. She likes how this team is playing right now.
“I feel like we played our best basketball against Nebraska Christian," Bernecker said. "Everyone was making shots. We had balanced scoring and played pretty good defense, it was an awesome game."
Her coach agreed.
“We are playing pretty good right now, but this is when it matters the most,” said Cedar Catholic coach Craig Wortmann.
Cedar will open the tournament at the Bob Devaney Sports Center at 7:45 p.m. on Wednesday against once-beaten Southwest.
The Renegades are located in Bartley, southwest of Kearney and north of McCook, in the southwest corner of the state. They are a consolidation of the former Twin Valley and Republican Valley schools.
Southwest will bring a 23-1
record into the contest and the No. 3 seed in Class D1. The Lady Trojans are the No. 6 seed.
The Renegades’ lone loss came in the second game of the season to Maywood-Hayes Center by nine points — a loss they avenged in their conference tournament, part of a 22-game winning streak.
“We don’t know much about them because they don’t really play any of the team’s we play,” said Wortmann. "They are tall, they have a 6-foot girl and a 5-11 girl, but we’ll be ready for them."
Southwest’s leading scorer is a freshman, Aspen Billeter, who scores just over 16 points per game and junior, Kyra Nelms, who scores just over 12 points per game.
Nelms pulls down just under nine missed shots per contest with Billeter grabbing 7.2 caroms per night.
A pair of seniors, Anastasia Gallegos and Allison Vanpelt average 3.5 assists and 3.3 steals per game respectively.
Cedar Catholic will counter with a more balanced scoring attack, getting 12 points per game from Anisten Wortmann, just under a dozen from Addison Walter and eight points per game from Katelyn Arens.
The same trio pulls down the most rebounds with Walter grabbing 6.2 rpg, Arens, 6.0 and Wortmann 5.0.
Bernecker distributes the ball for a bucket 2.1 times per game and Wortmann, Bernecker and Bailey Hochstein all swipe around two steals per contest.
“It is great to get back down there with my teammates,”
Bernecker said. "I want to go down there and play well. I have taken more of a leadership role, all of us seniors have the past couple of years. We don't yell at the other girls but just help them out, help them get better. And they have."
The winner of Cedar Catholic and Southwest will take on the winner of the first-round match between Elm Creek (24-1) and Diller-Odell (18-7) in the semifinals Friday at 10:45 at the Devaney Sports Center. The finals will be played Saturday at Pinnacle Bank Arena.
Coming in as the sixth seed, none of the state’s prognosticators have Cedar Catholic projected to make the finals.
Coach Wortmann has seen the numbers they all refer to.
His team averages just over 47 points per game, while his team’s defense gives up just over 44 points a game.
Both rank near the bottom amongst the teams in this week’s Class D1 State Tournament.
If those raw numbers are to be believed, this year’s Cedar Catholic Lady Trojans don’t stand a chance in this year's State Tournament.
Neither Wortmann nor his team believe those numbers mean anything, though.
The Lady Trojans’ knack for finding a way to win totally out weighs any numbers, Wortmann said.
“If we keep playing the way we’ve been playing lately, we could make some noise down there,” he said. "It's still a state tournament, though. You just never know what is going to happen."
Pender, the top seed in this year’s tournament, dominates oensively and possesses one of the topthree defenses in the tour- nament.
The Pendragons, the two-time defending state champs, dominate the competition. Pender's biggest win of the year ended up being a 60-point margin, as the Pen - dragons earned a 70-16 win over Wakefield.
Superior has the best defense overall but is slightly behind in oensive firepower.
