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By Lee Hughes
Staff reporter 

Cardinal girls win, remain No. 1 in league

 

Last updated 1/9/2020 at 11:46am

CHATTAROY — The Medical Lake girl’s basketball crew took out Riverside in a decisive 49-40 Northeast A road victory on Friday, Jan. 3, ending a two-game losing skid.

The good news is the two loses were non-league and over the holiday break, allowing the Cardinals to remain at the top of the NEA with a 3-0 league record.

“Four quarters of play,” was the mantra from head coach Kyle Lundberg just before the game.

He got three, and that was enough.

Medical Lake came out strong in the first half, holding the Rams to single digit scoring in the first quarter and 10 points in the second, heading into the locker room at the break with a 10-point lead despite 12 turnovers.

But the Card defense came into the second half lagging, but taking better care of the ball, holding the turnovers to three.

The Cards stumbled in the third quarter against a reinvigorated Ram defense that held them to only six points to Riverside’s nine, the girls shook it off in the fourth, and while they never quite got the defense going at the same rate as the first half, their initial lead, and a strong offense kept the Rams at bay to the final buzzer for the final nine-point victory and another league win.

“Emma Maxwell hitting a big 3 for us in the fourth quarter that enabled us to pull away with the win,” Lundberg said.

Lexie Redell and Maxwell were the Cardinals energizers, while together scoring 23 — nearly half the team’s points.

But the key to the team’s win were turnovers and the inside game under the basket, where Medical Lake took advantage of Riverside’s 29 turnovers — 18 of them stolen balls — that the Cards took back to score inside the paint.

Redell led team scoring with 12, with Maxwell and Ellie Accord close behind with 11 points apiece, while 5-foot-4 senior Emily Munson contributed six points and 10 rebounds.

“That was big for us,” Lundberg said of Munson’s rebounds.

The Cardinals remain at the top of the NEA with a 3-6 overall record with all their wins against NEA competitors. Freeman is on their heels in second place at 2-0 in the NEA and 8-2 overall.

The Cardinals travel to third-place Deer Park (2-1,7-3) on Friday, Jan. 10, for a 7:15 p.m. tip-off before traveling to Cashmere the following day for some non-league action against the undefeated and always tough Caribou Trail League Bulldogs (3-0,9-0).

Lundberg noted that Deer Park is very good on the defensive side of the ball.

“They really do a good job keeping their hands up and playing the passing lanes to create turnovers,” he said. “We really need to take care of the ball and be patient on the offensive side.”

He noted his team had been working hard in practice to get more game speed shots to help improve shooting.

“We are a really good shooting team, we just haven’t shown it yet in all four quarters,” Lundberg said.

Lee Hughes can be reached at lee@cheneyfreepress.com.

 

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