By John RittenhouseThe Luverne girls’ basketball team opened the 2005-06 season in promising fashion Saturday.Hosting Murray County Central for a non-conference contest, the Cardinals rallied from a seven-point deficit in the second half to pull out a 50-47 victory.The victory was sweet for LHS head coach Jason Phelps, who said losing tight games had been a problem for his team in recent years."We’ve had a lot of close games like this over the last four years, and we couldn’t get over the hump. It was nice to see us win a similar game," he said.Another nice thing about the win is that it came against a quality opponent.MCC is a team expected to challenge for the Red Rock Conference title this season, but the Rebels couldn’t knock off the Cardinals in the opener.The Rebels led 27-25 at the intermission before opening the second half with a 5-0 surge to gain a 32-25 lead.Luverne battled back to trim the difference to one point (34-33) when Samantha Gacke drained a free throw with 11:39 remaining in the game, but MCC countered with another 5-0 spurt to lead 39-33.The Cardinals responded to the challenge by putting together an 11-2 run capped by Maggie Kuhlman’s three-point shot at the 5:28 mark of the second half to move in front 44-41.MCC did sport a 46-44 advantage as the second half progressed, but the Cards moved in front to stay (48-46) when Kuhlman hit a three-point shot with 1:48 remaining before icing the contest with a pair of free throws with 23.9 seconds left to play.The game’s first half turned into a showdown between Kuhlman and MCC’s Rachel Christiansen.Kuhlman, who converted five of seven three-point shots and led all players with 23 points in the game, scored five of her 15 first-half points during a 7-0 LHS’ run to open the game.The Cards led 10-2 when Erin Hoiland sank a three-point shot, but MCC countered with a 17-2 run to gain a 19-12 advantage at the 8:11 mark of the first half.Luverne overcame MCC’s run by outscoring the Rebels 13-7 in the final eight minutes of the first half and trailed 27-25 at the break.Christiansen lifted MCC to a lead at the intermission by scoring 16 of her team-high 17 points in the opening half."We were concentrating on stopping her in the first half, but it didn’t work out," Phelps said."We didn’t change anything defensively from the first half to the second, we just played better. They had trouble getting her the ball."Kuhlman, who Phelps credited with playing a solid game, made seven of 12 shots from the field and collected six rebounds.Gacke led the Cards with nine rebounds and shared the team lead in steals (six) with Mindy Nieuwboer. Hoiland added two assists to the winning cause.The 1-0 Cards host Southwest Christian (6 p.m.) tonight.Box scoreKlein 2 0 0-0 4, Nieuwboer 2 0 0-2 4, Snyder 3 0 1-2 7, Kuhlman 2 5 4-4 23, Hoiland 0 1 1-2 4, Vogt 0 0 0-0 0, Gacke 2 0 4-6 8.Team StatisticsLuverne 16 of 52 field goals (31 percent), 10 of 16 free throws (63 percent), 28 rebounds, 21 turnovers.MCC: 18 of 43 field goals (42 percent), nine of 19 free throws (47 percent), 28 rebounds, 22 turnovers.
