Mullen too much to handle for South Loup in MNAC Title game
NORTH PLATTE - What a difference a year can make. After getting upset by South Loup a season ago in the MNAC Championship, the D2 No. 7 Mullen girls basketball team exercised their demons and beat the Bobcats 5629 in the MNAC Finals at North Platte Community College on Jan. 30.
“I think after last year, it definitely put some fire in us to get back and win it this year,” Mullen player Taylor Svoboda said. “It felt good to play a great game and get a lot of girls in. We played as a team, and we won this one as a team.”
Kylie Licking propelled the Broncos early on with two made jump shots.
Underneath, Mya Weverka made a layup for South Loup. A three up top by Bailey Schwarz gave the Bobcats their first lead at 5-4.
It would be the only lead South Loup would have the rest of the night as Mullen went on an 8-0 run to close out the first. It was capped off with a driving layup by Samantha Moore to beat the buzzer.
With Mullen leading 12-5 to begin the second, Moore picked up where she left off in the first with a three in the corner. A good pass underneath to Brooke McCully resulted in a layup and the Broncos lead was pushed up to 17-5.
The Bobcat’s only basket of the second half was a three by Megan Donegan.
Heading into halftime Mullen was up 30-10 after Moore drained her third three-pointer of the quarter. Her doubledigit scoring output in the second helped the Broncos to take firm command of the game.
In comments after the game, Moore thanked her teammates who she stated are the reason she gets the shot attempts that she does.
“I definitely could not do it without them,” Moore said. “They get me open for shots and thanks to them I get the points that I did tonight.”
Svoboda and Moore started off the third quarter with back to back layups. That was followed by Moore making a layup while being fouled. After making her free-throw the Broncos led 45-11.
South Loup was able to go on a mini scoring run thanks to a three by Megan Donegan. Two free-throws by Lauryn Johnson trimmed the lead down to 47-15 after three quarters.
After struggling offensively in the first three frames, the Bobcats finally got shots to fall in the fourth, outscoring the Broncos 14-9. A big contributor was Pandorf with a three and a freethrow.
Off the bench, Jordyn McDowell earned a layup inside for the final points of the game.
Despite South Loup’s best effort in the game, they were missing some big shoes on the court with seniors Jadeyn Bubak and Laney Badgley out with injuries from the semifinal game vs Anselmo-Merna. Not having the two players made it extremely difficult to guard UNK commit Moore.
“It did make it difficult,” South Loup Coach Abe Hinman said. “You go from having a seasoned basketball player and one of our fastest players trying to guard Sam Moore, to a couple of sophomores who didn’t have near the experience. Grant it they did their best, it’s just a learning experience.”
For Mullen, they not only won the MNAC but they scored a big victory over a contender in the ratings in Class C2 according to the Lincoln Journal
Star. With the win, the Broncos improved their record to 17-2 and moved up to fourth in the power points in Class D2.
“Every game we have the same goals,” Moore said. “We want to go out there and win every game. We go out with the same mentality no matter if we are facing a D2 school or a C2 school.
Leading all scorers in the game was Moore with 25 points. Licking finished with 11 points and Svoboda had nine.
For the Bobcats, they were led by Donegan with nine points and Pandorf with seven points.
The two teams will meet up once again in less than a week. They are scheduled to play at Mullen on Feb. 5.