In games that were so eerily similar they probably should have been played the week of Halloween rather than the week of Ground Hog Day, the Cardinal girls and boys both struggled on offense while turning in great defensive performances. The girls lost by 14 points and the boys by 12 to the Berean Warriors.
GIRLS:
Ell-Saline trailed 4-0 less than 45 seconds into the game. However, as the first half wound down, the Cardinals were able to tie the game at 18 all. The Warriors would get the last basket of the half to lead 20-18 at the break.
The second half was a whole different story. Ell-Saline only managed to score 4 points in the third quarter and 5 in the final stanza to lose by 14. After the 18-18 tie, Berean outscored the Cardinals 23-9.
Warrior junior Lillie Veer led all scorers with 19. Fellow junior Tayton Smith chipped in 10—all in the first half.
The Cardinals were led in scoring by Raleigh Kramer who hit two treys on her way to 10 points none of which came in the second half.
Ell-Saline 7 11 4 5 – 27
Berean 12 8 11 10 – 41
BOYS:
The Cardinal boys got off tp a great start and led most of the first quarter, but the Warriors would rally late in the opening stanza to take a 2 point lead after one period.
It was all downhill for the Cardinals after that as they would only score 17 points in the final three quarters of the game. Meanwhile, Berean would get 33 points in that same time frame.
The Warriors two “bigs”, 6-3 junior Creighton Kukula and 6-4 senior Austin Thiessen had 2/3rds of Berean’s points scoring 16 and 12 respectively.
Ell-Saline’s Brogan Rowley, a freshman, tied Kukula for leading scorer honors with 16 including three 3-pointers that came in the first 5 minutes of the game. Nobody else for the Cardinals had more than 5. Ell-Saline only had one field goal in the second half.
Ell-Saline 13 7 3 7 – 30
Berean 15 12 6 15 – 42
With the losses the Lady Cardinals are now 11-4 and the Boys fell to 2-13. Next up is a road trip for both squads to Bennington on Tuesday.
