The L-N Lady Raiders basketball season began last Friday and Saturday with the girls entertaining Red Cloud on Friday and Thayer Central on Saturday. The games were split as to the won-loss record, but they were pretty well played with a lot of promise displayed for the new season. The game summaries:

L-N – RED CLOUD: 47-34: The score by quarters tells a lot about the game:

L-N 12 10 14 11 - 47

Red Cloud 2 10 12 10 - 34

That ten point edge earned in the first period would essentially end up providing most of the point spread and shows the importance of getting off to a good start.

And . . . what a start it was. The Raiders got first possession and before six or seven seconds ran off the clock, Katelyn Mazour found herself open at the top of the key and let the ball fly to the hoop. Not only was the 3-pointer good, she bounced it off the back board.

The remainder of that period highlighted a pressing defense by L-N that forced six turnovers from Red Cloud and limited them to only two points for that first eight minutes of play.

A pressing Raider defense kept Red Cloud off balance for much of the game and L-N was working on a blow out early in the fourth period before Red Cloud connected on a number of free throws to go with several field goals to keep the score from getting out of hand late in the game.

There were a number of highlights for this first game of the season. For example: L-N did not have a player score in double figures, but a balanced effort was indicated by three players (Katelyn Mazour, Emma Epley and Emily Troudt) all scoring nine points and Elsa Jorgensen scoring seven.

Shooting percentages seemed better than past years, especially at the charity stripe where they hit 54 percent of the attempts.

As usual, first game victories do not dictate a season of success, but after the loss of a lot of last year’s team, it bodes well.

(Scoring, rebounds, assists): Sydney Biltoft 5, 2, 0; Jessica Sole 0, 0, 0; Claire Himmelberg 0, 0, 1; Aleah Heikkinen 6, 5, 1; Emily Troudt 9, 6, 2; Elsa Jorgensen 7, 0, 1; Emma Epley 9, 6, 3: Katelyn Mazour 9, 4, 2; Kara Menke 2, 2, 0.

L-N: 47, 25, 10

Red Cloud: 34, ?, ?

Three points shots: L-N 4-15: Sydney, Emily, Elsa, Katelyn all 1 each; Red Cloud 5-?

Free Throws: L-N 7-13; Sydney 2-4, Jessica 0-1, Emma 3-4, Katelyn 0-2, Kara 2-2; Red Cloud 7-18.

Fouls: L-N 20; Red Cloud 10.

L-N – THAYER CENTRAL: 39-51: The second game blues seemed to hit the Lady Raiders last Saturday evening as Thayer Central (TC) earned just a small advantage in the first half and managed to enlarge it ever so slowly in the last half.

L-N had three players score in double figures (10 pts. each) and made 13 of 15 free throws, but just could not control TC for any distance of time.

One highlight of the game for L-N was the charity stripe. The Lady Raiders hit 13 of 15 free throws, or 87 percent. That’s an outstanding statistic for any high school game.

(Scoring, rebounds, assists): Sydney Biltoft 4, 3, 0; Claire Himmelberg 3, 1, 0; Aleah Heikkinen 10, 8, 0; Emily Troudt 0, 1, 0; Elsa Jorgensen 0, 3, 2; Emma Epley 10, 3, 1: Katelyn Mazour 10, 2, 0; Kara Menke 2, 8, 0.

L-N: 39, 29, 3;

Thayer Central: 51, ?, ?.

Three points shots: L-N 2-6: Claire 1-2, Katelyn 1-1. Thayer Central ?.

Free Throws: L-N 13-15: Sydney 0-2, Aleah 4-4, Emma 6-6, Katelyn 3-3. Thayer Central ?.

Fouls: L-N 15; Thayer Central ?.

This week the girls travel to Franklin on Friday and play DBS Saturday evening.