No. 3 to No. 1 . . .

An impressive trip . . .

In Class D-2 Girls' Basketball there are close to 60 schools enjoying the sport from December to February.

Right now, that number is down to 16 teams still playing the game. Soon, the number will be down to eight as the state wide tournament will take place.

The system of eliminating school starts with the sub-district tournament with either four or five teams in each event.

Lawrence-Nelson was assigned to the D2-4 tournament held at Heartland Lutheran School in Grand Island. L-N was seeded as the No. 3 team with Heartland as No. 1, Palmer No. 2, Giltner No. 4 and Harvard No. 5.

As these things worked out, D2-4 was the only one of the 12 sub-district tournaments that didn't have a team with a winning record. However, at this time of the year, that is often unimportant.

Giltner defeated Harvard in the 'play-in' game and then lost to Heartland. L-N defeated Palmer in their first game to face the No. 1 Seed. The Lady Raiders then defeated Heartland for the sub-district title and the right to move on in the elimination process.

Right now L-N is one of only 16 Class D-2 teams still playing in the 2023-24 season.

The game summaries of the tournament games:

L-N – PALMER: 36-28: The game started with both teams unable to score for three minutes. That was until Hanna Skinner stole a Palmer pass and found Sydney Biltoft racing down court with a pass and layup by Sydney to start the scoring for the Lady Raiders.

Defense was the name of the game for L-N in the first half of play. Palmer was held scoreless for the first 14 minutes of the game as they used a full court press to help force 11 turnovers by Palmer before Palmer found the basket. The score by quarters:

L-N 11 9 10 6 - 36

Palmer 0 4 10 14 - 28

With a lot of the Palmer defenders guarding Kara Menke, Hanna Skinner stepped up scoring most of her game high points in the first half of play. Hanna scored 14 points, making 6-9 at the charity strip, pulling down seven rebounds and having four assists.

In the second half of play Palmer stepped up their aggressive offense and defensive press. However, the Lady Raiders withstood the changed Palmer effort. Jessica Sole scored all five of her points in the third period and the team did not score well in the final period except at the charity stripe and that was enough to secure the win.

Game stats: (FG, FT, RB., Pts.)

Addi McCloskey 0-4, 0-0, 4, 0

Sydney Biltoft 3-8, 1-4, 3, 7

Brook Combs-Glebe 0-1, 0-0, 3, 0

Jessica Sole 2-6, 0-0, 2, 5

Vali Koehler 0-1, 0-0, 2, 0

Hanna Skinner 3-12, 6-9, 7, 14

Kara Menke 2-11, 2-6, 5, 6

Josie Hajny 2-4, 0-0, 4, 4

L-N totals: 12-47, 9-19, 38, 36

Palmer totals: 10-53, 6-18, 45, 28

L-N – HEARTLAND: 39-28: Just like real life, basketball games have stories all their own. In the first game of the sub-district, L-N had its best play in the first half of the game. In this championship sub-district game, the girls had their best play in the last half of this game. A person could guess that by the score:

L-N 8 6 13 12 - 39

H-L 10 9 4 5 - 28

The story is how did we get the end result we wanted? Consider the following: • The first period saw L-N struggle a little but Kara's two points and Addi's two, 3-pt. shots kept the Raiders in the game. • H-L turned up the defensive pressure in the second period, forcing five turnovers. However, in the last two minutes of the period, Sydney scored twice to keep the Raiders reasonably close. • Period No. 3 saw something change for L-N and it seemed to be the defensive pressure by the Raiders. L-N forced seven turnovers from H-L and a stepped up offense saw five points fall for Jessica along with field goals by Sydney, Kara and Hanna. • Period 4 saw L-N keep up a very good defensive effort while also making almost 50 percent of their field goals to secure the victory.

Little things add up to big things as well. For example: • Kara led all scorers with 10, but five others scored at critical times. * In that last half of play, H-L made only 3 of 13 free throws. • L-N not only played against H-L, but it seemed at times they played against the officials being called for 12 fouls to only six for H-L. • A slight edge in rebounds, steals, assists and making 3 of 3 at the charity strip all contributed to this 5th win in the last 7 games.

The win allows the girls to move on to the District final that will determine the State Tournament lineup.

Game stats: (FG, FT, RB., Pts.)

Addi McCloskey 2-9, 0-0, 6, 6

Sydney Biltoft 4-5, 0-0, 1, 9

Brook Combs-Glebe 0-0, 0-0, 0, 0

Jessica Sole 2-7, 0-0, 5, 6

Vali Koehler 0-1, 0-0, 0, 0

Sydney Biltoft looks to pass the ball in the game against Heartland Lutheran. Sydney recovered from an injury late in the season to add a scoring punch to the lineup.

Hanna Skinner 2-11, 1-1, 4, 6

Kara Menke 4-13, 2-2, 9, 10

Josie Hajny1-2, 0-0, 1, 2

L-N total 15-48, 3-3, 35, 39

H-L total 11-42, 5-15, 31, 28