By John RittenhouseThe Luverne girls basketball team ran into ranked teams from two different states during a pair of home outings.Worthington upended the Cardinals by 22 points Friday night before West Central, a state-ranked team from South Dakota, toppled LHS by 11 points Tuesday.The 4-12 Cards play in Redwood Falls Friday.WC 56, Luverne 45The Cardinals played well enough to keep the game close when they entertained West Central Tuesday.The score was tied at seven after eight minutes of play, but WC outscored the hosts 49-38 the rest of the way to win by 11."We played pretty well," said Cardinal coach Jason Phelps. "We were down by four and had the ball with 10 seconds left in the first half when they blocked a shot and converted a three-point play late in the half. That was a big play. Instead of being down by four points at halftime, we were down by seven."WC extended what was a 24-17 halftime lead to 14 points (47-33) by outscoring the Cards 23-16 in the third quarter.Luverne sported a 12-9 scoring edge in the fourth quarter, but it wasn’t enough to catch WC.Maggie Kuhlman led the Cards with 13 points and six assists. Samantha Gacke netted 10 points and snared eight rebounds. Mindy Nieuwboer charted seven steals and Traci Evans added five rebounds to Luverne’s cause.Box scoreHeitkamp 0 0 0-0 0, Nieuwboer 1 0 2-4 4, Snyder 3 1 0-0 9, Kuhlman 2 1 6-8 13, Hoiland 0 0 0-0 0, Gacke 4 0 2-4 10, Evans 4 0 1-3 9.Worthington 68, Luverne 46The Cardinals remained within striking distance against the state’s third-ranked Class 3AAA team for three quarters before running out of gas in the fourth quarter Friday in Luverne.Luverne was one run away from knocking off Worthington when it faced a 49-40 deficit heading into the fourth quarter. The Trojans, however, scored the first eight points of the final period and used a 19-6 scoring cushion in the period to win the game by 22 points.After falling behind 7-2 early in the game, Luverne battled back to knot the score at nine when Kuhlman converted a three-point play with less than three minutes to play in the first period. Worthington outscored the Cards 6-2 the rest of the period to lead 15-11 at quarter’s end.The Trojans extended their lead to eight points early in the second period before Luverne put together a 7-0 spurt capped by a field goal from Evans with 3:15 remaining in the first half to trim Worthington’s lead to one point (20-19). Worthington led by as many as seven points as the quarter progressed before settling with 30-24 halftime cushion.Worthington led by 13 (42-29) in the third quarter when the Cards put together a 7-2 run capped by Tori Snyder’s layup at the 2:32 mark of the stanza to make it a 44-35 game. The Trojans maintained a nine-point lead (49-40) at the end of the third quarter before icing the contest in the final eight minutes.Gacke scored 10 points in the first half and led the Cards with 17 points in the game. Kuhlman scored 12 points and passed for six assists. Nieuwboer charted eight rebounds, six assists and four steals.Box scoreKlein 0 0 0-0 0, Heitkamp 0 0 0-0 0, Hanson 0 0 0-0 0, Nieuwboer 1 0 1-2 3, Snyder 3 0 0-0 6, Peterson 0 0 2-2 2, Kuhlaman 2 2 2-3 12, Hoiland 1 0 0-0 2, Vogt 0 0 0-0 0, Gacke 8 0 1-2 17, Evans 2 0 0-0 2.Team statisticsLuverne: 19 of 48 field goals (40 percent), six of nine free throws (67 percent), 20 rebounds, 22 turnovers.Worthington: 25 of 61 field goals (41 percent), 13 of 19 free throws (68 percent), 29 rebounds, 16 turnovers.
