Luverne senior forward Aaron Schmidt (22) reaches for one of his five rebounds during Tuesday’s boys’ basketball game against Pipestone in Luverne. The Cardinals made a bid to upset the Arrows before falling 61-51 at game’s end.
By John Rittenhouse
The Luverne boys’ basketball team was unable to knock off a pair of Southwest Conference foes at home this week.
The Cardinals turned in a strong performance while falling to league unbeaten Pipestone Area by 10 points Tuesday. Marshall clobbered the Cards by 35 points Friday.
Luverne, 2-11 overall, plays in Worthington Friday and in Lennox, S.D., Tuesday.
Pipestone 61,
Luverne 51
The Cardinals made a bid to knock the Arrows out of the unbeaten ranks in SWC play Tuesday before dropping a 10-point decision in Luverne.
Luverne sported leads at the first two quarter breaks and led by as many as six points in the third quarter, but the Arrows outscored LHS 37-25 in the second half to steal a victory.
Trailing 5-2 early, Luverne put together a 9-0 run with a pair of three-point shots from Joey Pick and another from Andy Stegemann to take an 11-5 lead with 30 seconds left in the first period before settling for an 11-7 cushion at period’s end.
Josh Lange converted a three-point play at the 5:56 mark of the second quarter to give the Cards a 17-9 lead, and the difference was 17-9 when Pipestone mounted an 11-2 run to take a 22-21 lead with 1:58 left in the first half.
Luverne regained the lead at 24-22 when Stegemann buried a three with 39 seconds left in the quarter, and Aaron Schmidt converted a field goal with nine seconds left to give the Cards a 26-24 halftime edge.
Luverne scored the first four points of the third quarter and led 32-26 when the Arrows put together an 8-0 run to move in front 34-32.
The Cards tied the score at 34 and 36, but Pipestone outscored LHS 10-4 in the final three minutes of the period to take a 46-40 advantage into the fourth quarter.
After falling behind by nine points early, Luverne’s Jesse Kuhlman drained a three to make it a 51-45 game with 5:01 remaining. That proved to be as close as the Cards would come to catching Pipestone as the Arrows outscored LHS 10-6 the rest of the way to win by 10.
Pick and Stegemann led LHS with 11 and 10 points respectively. Schmidt collected five rebounds. Kuhlman came up with three steals.
Box score
Studer 1 0 0-0 2, Pick 0 3 2-2 11, Kuhlman 3 1 0-0 9, Schmidt 2 0 2-2 6, Stegemann 2 2 0-0 10, Boelman 3 0 0-0 6, Lange 3 0 1-2 7, Herman 0 0 0-0 0.
Team statistics
Luverne: 20 of 42 field goals (48 percent), five of six free throws (83 percent), 14 rebounds, 17 turnovers.
Pipestone: 21 of 43 field goals (49 percent), 15 of 20 free throws (75 percent), 21 rebounds, 14 turnovers.
Marshall 73,
Luverne 38
A sluggish offensive performance by the Cardinals led to a 35-point defeat when they entertained the Tigers for a SWC tilt Friday.
Luverne made 23 percent of its field goals in the game, opening the door for victory to a Marshall squad that outscored the Cards in every quarter.
"They are a much faster team than we are," said Cardinal coach Tom Rops. "We didn’t shoot the ball well, and they ran the floor on us. It wasn’t much of a game."
The Tigers raced to an 18-point lead (24-6) in the first quarter and increased the difference to 25 points (39-14) by halftime. Marshall increased its lead by two points (53-26) in the third quarter before outscoring LHS 20-12 in the fourth quarter to win by 35.
Kuhlman scored eight points for Luverne. Schmidt had three rebounds.
Box score
Studer 1 0 2-2 4, Kuhlman 1 2 0-0 8, Deragisch 2 0 0-1 4, Stegemann 1 0 0-0 2, DeGroot 1 0 4-4 6. Hulstein 1 0 0-0 2, Boelman 2 0 0-0 4, Lange 1 0 0-0 2, Schmidt 0 0 0-0 0, Pick 0 1 0-2 3, Goembel 0 1 0-0 3.
Team statistics
Luverne: 14 of 61 field goals (23 percent), six of nine free throws (67 percent), 22 rebounds, 12 turnovers.
Marshall: 27 of 51 field goals (23 percent), 13 of 18 free throws (72 percent), 38 rebounds, 14 turnovers.