By John RittenhouseThe Luverne girls’ basketball team dropped a pair of Southwest Conference games at home to start league play.Pipestone toppled the Cardinals by 27 points in Luverne Thursday before Worthington came to town Tuesday and saddled LHS with an 11-point setback.Luverne, 1-3 overall, plays in Marshall tonight before hosting Murray County Central Monday.Worthington 51,Luverne 40Offensive problems in the second and third quarters led to an 11-point defeat when Luverne entertained Worthington Tuesday.The Trojans outscored the Cards 27-10 in the second and third quarters to put the game away."We went seven minutes without scoring in the second quarter," said Cardinal coach Jason Phelps."You can’t do that and have a chance to win. Inconsistency seems to be a reoccurring theme for us. We’ve got to find someone who can score some points in every quarter. Right now, we don’t have that."It looked like Danielle Loosbrock might be in for a big game when she drained field goals early in the first quarter to give LHS 2-0 and 4-3 leads, but the score was tied at five when Worthington went on a 6-1 run to open an 11-6 lead.A field goal by Mindy Nieuwboer and two free throws from Traci Evans trimmed the difference to one point (11-10) before the Trojans extended their lead to 13-10 by the end of the first quarter.The momentum swung into Worthington’s favor when the Trojans scored the first 12 points of the second quarter to open a 25-10 lead.Nieuwboer, who led the Cards with 14 points, hit a field goal with 22 seconds remaining in the first half to keep the Cardinals from being shutout in the second stanza.Worthington, which led 25-12 at the intermission, went on an 11-0 run after the teams exchanged baskets in the early stages of the third quarter to gain a 40-16 lead that was trimmed to 20 points (40-20) by period’s end.Luverne received a three-point play from Marissa Stewart and a three-point shot by Maggie Kuhlman in the first two minutes of the fourth quarter that sparked an 18-7 run that ended with Worthington leading by nine (47-38) after Samantha Gacke hit a field goal with 53 seconds remaining.Worthington, however, outscored the Cards 4-2 the rest of the way to prevail by 11.Nieuwboer led LHS with three steals. Loosbrock snared four rebounds.Box scoreHeitkamp 0 0 0-0 0, Boomgaarden 0 0 0-0 0, Nieuwboer 5 0 4-8 14, Snyder 1 0 0-0 2, Peterson 0 0 0-0 0, Kuhlman 2 1 1-2 8, Stewart 2 0 1-1 5, Gacke 1 0 1-4 3, Evans 0 0 2-2 2, Loosbrock 3 0 0-0 6, VanDeBerg 0 0 0-0 0.Team statisticsLuverne: 15 of 69 field goals (22 percent), nine of 18 free throws (50 percent), 11 rebounds, 17 turnovers.Worthington: 20 of 63 field goals (32 percent), 14 of 23 free throws (61 percent), 22 rebounds, 11 turnovers.Pipestone 59,Luverne 32A promising start ended with a disappointing finish when the Cardinals hosted the Arrows in the Southwest Conference opener for both teams Thursday in Luverne.The Cards raced to a 7-2 lead early in the game, but the Arrows outscored the hosts 57-25 the rest of the way to prevail by 27 points."They outplayed us in every aspect of the game," said Cardinal coach Phelps. "We led early, but we got careless with the ball when they started to pressure us. We gave up a lot of easy baskets because of their pressure."Pipestone rallied to sport a 9-7 lead after the first eight minutes of play before going on a 23-8 scoring run in the second period to sport a 32-15 lead at the intermission.The Arrows increased their lead to 27 points (59-32) by the end of the third quarter and won by 27 after battling the Cards to a draw at 10 in the fourth quarter.Nieuwboer led the Cards with eight points. Loosbrock and Gacke snared six and five rebounds respectively. Tera Boomgaarden led the Cards with five steals.Box scoreHeitkamp 0 0 0-0 0, Boomgaarden 1 0 0-0 2, Nieuwboer 2 1 1-2 8, Snyder 1 0 1-2 3, Peterson 0 0 0-0 0, Kuhlman 1 1 0-0 5, Stewart 2 0 0-0 4, Gacke 2 0 0-0 4, Loosbrock 3 0 0-0 6, VanDeBerg 0 0 0-0 0.Team statisticsLuverne: 14 of 61 field goals (22 percent), two of four free throws (50 percent), 23 rebounds, 21 turnovers.Pipestone: 23 of 65 field goals (35 percent), 13 of 24 free throws (54 percent), 31 rebounds, 12 turnovers.
