Mustangs take two from Wolves on the road
SARGENT - The S-E-M and Twin Loup basketball teams met up for a late-season double-header on Feb. 9 in Sargent. It was the Mustangs who came out victorious 4230 in the girl’s game and 73-44 in the boy’s contest.
S-E-M girls team who is currently rated No. 10 in Class D2 in the polls put out by the Omaha World, got off to a fast start with a 10-2 run in the first quarter.
“We started the game like we needed to and talked about that before the game,” S-E-M Girls Coach John Rohde said. “We wanted to start fast, get steals, get them uncomfortable by applying some pressure, and were hoping it would lead to some easy baskets and it did.”
The Wolves were able to take over in the scoring category in the second, thanks to an 11-10 run.
Despite a good second quarter, Twin Loup still trailed at halftime 20-13.
S-E-M was very consistent in the second half, scoring 11 points in both the third and fourth quarters. They fell back on their defense as they continued to build on their lead, holding the Wolves to single digits in the final two frames of the game.
This was the first win for the Mustangs in five games. In that stretch, they played a brutal schedule of teams who are rated in their respective classes.
“We knew even before the season started that we would have a tough stretch of games vs some really good teams,” John Rohde said. “We worked hard and thought maybe we could get one or two of them but it didn’t end up that way. The girls really stayed positive and kept working and we kept talking about things we could handle like keep improving our game and be ready for the next test.”
Leading S-E-M with 15 points was Mikah O’Neill and Faith Hernandez had eight points. Abbie Rohde had four assists and five steals in the game.
Karina Kitt led the Wolves with 10 points and Tera Horky had eight points.
In the boy’s contest, similar to the girl’s game, the Mustangs were able to snap a losing skid in a big way with a huge scoring outbreak.
In the first half, S-E-M raced out to a 17-8 lead behind their hot shooting. It continued into the second quarter, but their defense couldn’t keep up.
As a result, Twin Loup outscored the Mustangs 18-16 in the second quarter and trailed at halftime 33-26.
The lead for S-E-M was broke open in the second half thanks to a 21 point third quarter and then a 19-7 run in the fourth quarter.
“It was definitely nice to get a win,” S-E-M Boys Coach Darby Line said. “We had been struggling a little bit with team play and just shooting the ball in general. I thought they played us well in the first half, but we just found a way to play better defense and put the ball in the basket in the final two quarters.”
Creighton Line led all scorers in the contest with 20 points and Carson Rohde had 14 points. Noah and Kellen Eggleston each finished with 11 points.
The Wolves were led by Daniel Folkers and Cael Richardson with 11 points apiece.
Twin Loup is off now until Sub-Districts next week and S-E-M ends their regular season at Callaway vs South Loup on Feb. 19.