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Lady Trojans pick up two wins at State Tournament
LINCOLN — Cedar Catholic rebounded Saturday from the disappointment of Friday’s semifinals loss with a great fourth-quarter defensive effort to send the Lady Trojans to a 48-33 win in the Class D1 third-place game at Lincoln Standing Bear High School.
“We kind of had to get our motor going early on,” Cedar Catholic coach, Craig Wortmann said. “Once we got going we did really well. You have to realize, everyone down here is good. You have to shoot the ball a little better, you have to protect the ball a little more, you need to defend every second. I was really happy with the way we responded.”
The Lady Trojans found themselves behind by a bucket heading into the second frame but outscored the Lady Cardinals by a touchdown in the second, 14-7, to take a 22-17 lead into the halftime huddle.
Katelyn Arens put her team on her back in the second half.
“Katelyn Arens played great down here this weekend,” her coach said. “I don’t know of anyone else in the Class D1 field who played any better than her. When it comes to an All-Tournament team or whatever, she’d be on mine.”
Alma climbed back to within 22-21, then Arens got busy.
She scored inside then hit Addison Walter on the block for a bucket, then she grabbed a stubborn offensive rebound off of her own miss and scored and Cedar was back up by seven, 28-21.
The Lady Cardinals hit a three to get to within 28-24, but Anisten Wortmann answered with a long ball of her own and a drive to the hoop for a bucket to make it 33-24.
Walter splashed two from downtown, one to open the final period and another just over 30 seconds later after the Lady Cardinals had scored inside and the score was 39-30 with 5:41 left on the clock.
Another Alma trifecta out of a timeout made it 39-33 before Wortmann converted 1-of-2 from the line, Arens scored inside, McKinlee Lammers canned a pair of charity tosses and Arens went 2-for-2 from the free throw line.
Arens, who finished with 22 points in the contest, added one last bucket in the paint and the final score was set at 48-33.
“You never know what is going to happen in these consolation games,” Wortmann said. “But once we got going it all worked out. These girls care about each other and we wanted to send our seniors out the right way. If they’re going to keep score, we want to win.”
Pender went on to defeat Elm Creek in the D1 finals to claim its second straight D1 championship and third championship in a row. Cedar Catholic finished its season 17-12.
Alma 10 7 11 5 — 33 Cedar 8 14 11 15 —48 ALMA (21-8): Kamryn Scott 5 4-6 17; Miley Whitney 2 0-0 5; Tierston Moore 4 0-4 6; Kamri Neal 1 0-0 2; Harper Fennel 1 0-0 2; Chayse Molzahn 0 1-4 1; Vayden Epp 0 0-4 0. CEDAR CATHOLIC: (17-12): McKinlee Lammers 0 0-2 0; Savannah Pick 0 0-2 0; Katelyn Arens 10 2-6 22; Anisten Wortmann 3 1-2 8; Brynn Bernecker 1 3-4 5; Addison Walter 5 0-0 13.
Cedar Catholic comes up short in semifinals
LINCOLN — Cedar Catholic came out firing in the semifinals of the Nebraska Class D1 Basketball Championships at the Bob Devaney Sports Center Friday morning.
In fact, the Lady Trojans were up by 12 in the first half before the Elm Creek Lady Buffaloes came back in the second half to take a 54-49 win over Cedar while improving to 26-1 on the season and sending the Trojans to tomorrow’s consolation game.
Even with the comeback, which saw the Lady Buffaloes go up by as many six, the Lady Trojans battled back and had two chances to tie the game in the final minute of the contest.
“I just told the girls I was proud of them and they competed just like I expected them to,” said Cedar Catholic coach, Craig Wortmann. “We certainly made them (Elm Creek) work for everything they got and then some.”
In the final minute, Cedar Catholic used the “fouling strategy” to try to get back in front, and it nearly worked.
Trailing by 3 after the Lady Buffaloes scored inside, with just over a minute left, Addison Walter had a great look at a 3, but the ball bounced high off the rim and the Trojans fouled Halle Knapp and sent her to the line for a pair of free throws.
Knapp converted the charity tosses and Bailey Hochstein dribbled the ball down the court and hit a 7-foot step-through jump shot to bring Cedar Catholic back to within three with just over 50 seconds remaining.
The Lady Trojans fouled again and sent Ashley Bauer to the foul line for two free throws. She made just one of two then Brynn Bernecker drove to the basket to trim the lead back to two.
Hochstein then found herself somewhat open from the top of the key and fired up a 3, her shot looked good, but hit off the rim and Cedar had to foul again with 13.2 second left and Elm Creek hit both of the free throws to take a 52-47 lead.
Hochstein drove to the basket and scored on the Lady Trojans ensuing possession to make it 52-49, but Cedar was out of timeouts and fouled with just.3 seconds left on the clock.
The Lady Buffaloes made both gifters and the final score was set.
“We really had great looks on both of those 3’s,” said Wortmann. “They just didn’t go in, that’s basketball.”
In the first half, the Lady Trojans went up by 12 just after the end of the opening eight minutes when Walter splashed her second consecutive 3-pointer, hitting one to end the first and one to open the second to claim a 21-9 lead.
The Lady Buffaloes answered with a 3 of their own and converted 1-of-2 free throws with 6:40 left before the break to make it 21-13.
Bailey Hochstein scrambled for an offensive rebound and shuffled the ball to Katelyn Arens who scored to make it 23-13.
Neither team scored for nearly the next three minutes until Elm Creek hit a bucket in the paint. Walter canned another 3 to make it 26-13 with just over 2:30 left before the intermission.
By the break, Elm Creek had trimmed the lead to 26-23 and finally took the lead, 27-26 early in the second half.
“We have been concentrating on keeping everything the same this whole trip down here,” said Wortmann. “We’ll let this loss set in for a bit then well gather together and start working on a plan to win tomorrow. These girls care about each other, I think we’ll be ready to go and take home the third-place plaque.”
Cedar 18 8 10 13 - 49 Elm Creek 9 14 16 15 - 54 CEDAR (16-12): Katelyn Arens 3-5 3-4 12; Lauren Bernecker 1-7 0-0 2; Addison Walter 5-13 0-2 13; Bailey Hochstein 3-7 0-0 6; Anisten Wortmann 5-16 2-2 13; Savannah Pick 1-7 0-0 2; Brynn Bernecker 1-1 2-2 4; McKinlee Lammers 0-2 0-0 0. ELM CREEK (26-1): Halle Knapp 2-9 3-6 7; Chelsea Kottich 3-8 4-6 10; Kendal Cavenee 6-11 0-0 14; Ryann Erickson 2-6 5-6 9; Ashley Bauer 3-16 5-6 14; Teagan McDaniel 0-1 0-0 0.
Cedar Catholic rolls to first round win
LINCOLN - A great team defense and an opportunistic offense carried the Cedar Catholic Lady Trojans to a 54-27 win over Southwest at the Bob Devaney Sports Center in the opening round of the D1 Nebraska Girls Basketball Championships Wednesday night. It was the Roughriders second loss of the season.
It was the Cedar Catholic defense that paced the Lady Trojans all night.
“We wanted to keep ball pressure on them the entire length of the floor and we wanted to make all five of their players handle the ball,” said Cedar Catholic coach, Craig Wortmann. “We wanted to keep the presure on until they made a mistake, and they did in the first half especially.”
Cedar Catholic forced 17 first-half turnovers and limited the high-powered Southwest offense to just 12 points in the opening 16 minutes to take a fairly comfortable, 29-12 lead at the intermission.
“We played our tempo and our game tonight. I told them we needed to come out with a lot of energy to start the game and in the first four minutes of the second half,” said Wortmann. “At the beginning, we had a lot of energy, we just weren’t making shots. They started to fall and we got rolling.”
The Renegades held their first and last lead at 4-3 after Bailey Hochstein opened the game with a long ball for Cedar in the first 30 seconds.
Southwest scored on an in bounds play and a rebound and put back to go up 4-3 and the score remained that way for over two minutes in the first frame.
Wortmann dribbled down the left side of the paint and scored to give the Lady Trojans back the lead then Savannah Pick drilled a shot from behind the arc and with 3:30 left in the first to make it 8-4.
Pick then hit Katelyn Arens breaking to the basket for two and McKinlee Lammers spotted Arens inside for another bucket and Cedar Catholic was on its way.
“I just got the ball and scored, it was what I needed to do,” said Arens, who finished with a game-high 17 points. “This is so exciting and to do this with my teammates makes it even better, we love each other.”
By the end of the first quarter, the Lady Trojans lead was up to 19-7 and increased to the 29-12 halftime advantage.
