L-N Basketball season starts

L/N Basketball teams open season with double wins and losses

A person can say the opening weekend of L-N High School 2023-24 basketball was great, or you could say it certainly was not great.

Both statements would be correct.

You see, the boys had to sweat a little bit, but they won both opening games by coming from behind for the wins. The girls, however, got off to a rougher start being defeated in both games.

A quick side note here for the new rules for the current basketball season:

*each team will shoot two free throws when fouls have reached five per quarter;

* team fouls will reset at the end of each quarter;

* student athletes that participate in both JV and Varsity can play up to seven quarters per night.

Game summaries

BOYS VS RED CLOUD – 53-44: It's not always easy to change from one sport to another in high school. However, those first games of a season are essential. Box score:

L/N 8 12 10 23 - 53

Red Cloud 7 13 4 20 - 44

The L-N boys basketball team entertained Red Cloud last Friday at home in Nelson. The nine point win was not certain as the game got started. In fact, it took way over five minutes before either team put any points on the scoreboard. One interesting fact of this beginning game was that L-N was 0-7 and RC was 0-6 in field goals in those first 5 minutes of the game. In those last 2 minutes, L-N made 3-5 and R C made 3-4.

The game settled down somewhat but the Raiders had a four minute scoreless span opening the second half of play, broken by a Clay Williams field goal. Williams, in fact, scored seven of the Raider's ten points in this period.

The final quarter saw almost as much scoring as the first three combined. For the Raiders it was a team effort. To start, Carter Griffis came off the bench to score 7 points to keep L/N on top on the score board. Sawyer Cox next dumped in several baskets to break a 37-37 tie. The team made 7 of 9 field goals in the final period along with 6-13 free throws to help insure the win.

Unofficial scoring figures for the Raiders were: Clay Williams 12, Connor Janda 12, Carter Griffis 9, Bayln Bargen 6, Nolan Ostdiek 6, Sawyer Cox 8.

BOYS VS ARAPAHOE – 39-38:

Second verse . . .

Almost same as the first . . .

L-N 6 13 10 10 - 39

Arapahoe 12 7 5 14 - 38

Very similar to the first game of the season in that the beginning of the game was almost painful for the Raiders. It seemed that few shots fell (3-14); turnovers (5) were excessive and the hustle of the Friday night game wasn't there. The result was a first period where Arapahoe doubled the Raider's point production.

The team's roles seemed to reverse in the second period and that led to a tied score at half time (just like the Friday game). Nolan Ostdiek, Clay Williams and Sawyer Cox shared the scoring duties in this period.

The third period saw a little more zip in their game and maybe a little more confidence as L-N made 5 of 10 field goals which included four of their final four attempts.

I failed to mention the interest in the game was enhanced by the following:

* each team led by six points at one time;

* the lead changed hands ten times throughout the game; * the score was tied six times throughout the game.

So the game comes down to the final period with L-N holding a five point lead. Arapahoe went on an 8-2 scoring run to start the period. Nolan Ostdiek and Sawyer Cox each scored four points to keep the Raiders in the game but Arapahoe scored to tie the game at 37-37 with 1 _ minutes to play.

Arapahoe went ahead 38-37 on a free throw with one minutes left in the game. However, Cox score two with 45 seconds left in the game and Clay Williams blocked a shot with 26 seconds left in the game enabling the Raiders to run out the clock.

A side note of interest is that Arapahoe lost both games, both of them by one point.

Unofficial scoring stats for the Raiders were: Nolan Ostdiek 16, Sawyer Cox 11, Bayln Bargen 2, Clay Williams 9, Jace Hoelting 1.

GIRLS VS RED CLOUD: 20-44: The L-N Raider Girls' team had a couple of situations to content with in their opening games of the 2023-24 basketball season. First off the girls and two new coaches that are learning how to work together and secondly, Raider senior Sydney Biltoft, missed the weekend due to a foot injury earlier in the week. The box score looked like this:

L-N 4 10 3 3 - 20

Red Cloud 4 16 13 11 - 44

Both teams had trouble adding points to the scoreboard for the first quarter and one half. The score was tied at 9-9 at that point and things changed quite a bit. For about the next eight minutes Red Cloud out-scored L/N 19-5 to take and keep a commanding lead over the Raiders.

Red Cloud had an advantage in both the number of shots taken and in the shooting percentage made, not allowing L-N any chance to sneak back into the game.

One highlight for the game was in rebounding where the Raiders were about even up. Kara Menke led the team in scoring with nine points.

(FG, FT, Rb, Pts.)

Addi McCloskey 2-7, 0-1, 2, 4; Brook Combs-Glebe 0-0, 0-0, 1, 0; Jessica Sole 2-5, 0-2, 3, 6; Val Koehler 0-1, 0-0, 0, 0; Hanna Skinner 0-0, 0-0, 1, 0; Kara Menke 3-12, 3-5, 11, 9; Josie Hajny 0-4, 1-2, 4, 1; Natalie Wehrman 0-2, 0-0, 0, 0; Danyelle Church 0-1, 0-0, 0 0; L-N total: 7-32, 4-10, 22, 20; Red Cloud total: 19-46, 4-11, 23, 44.

GIRLS VS ARAPAHOE – 27-52: On Saturday night, the L/N girls' team took on their second class D-1 school of the season when Arapahoe came to Nelson. The score by quarter was as follows:

L-N 10 6 8 3 - 27

Arapahoe 13 19 4 16 - 52

As you can see by the box score, the Raiders kept up with Arapahoe early on, but could not keep up for the rest of the game. Arapahoe had ball control much of the game and managed many more shots than the Raiders. L-N did make 24 trips to the charity strip, but could not benefit there either. Turnovers were about even as well.

Kara Menke led Raider scorers with 12 points while Josie Hajny and Hanna Skinner led rebounders with 6 each while Addison McCloskey brought down five rebounds.

FG, FT, Rb, Pts.)

Addi McCloskey 1-8, 1-1, 5, 4; Brook Combs-Glebe 0-2, 0-0, 1, 0; Jessica Sole 1-5, 3-10, 2, 6; Val Koehler 0-2, 0-0, 4, 0; Hanna Skinner 2-3, 0-4, 6, 4; Kara Menke 6-14, 0-7, 3, 12; Josie Hajny 0-3, 1-2, 6, 1; L/N total: 10-37, 5-24, 29, 27; Arapahoe total: 23-61, 3-7, 43, 52.

This week, both the boys and girls will play at Franklin on Friday and travel to BDS on Saturday.