Pender defeated the Clarkson/Leigh Girls 51-31 in the D1-4 Sub-District Semifinals at Wisner-Pilger Tuesday night.
The Pendragons tripled up the Patriots 12-4 in the first quarter before winning the second quarter 13-11 to lead 25-15 at halftime.
Pender outscored Clarkson/Leigh 17-6 in the third quarter to go up 42-21 at the end of three.
The Patriots put up 10 points in the fourth quarter compared to 9 for the Pendragons.
Clarkson/Leigh was led by lone Senior Shelby Paprocki with 12 points.
Head Coach Matt Murren. "We just struggled shooting the ball. Just couldn't quite get it in the hoop. And it's tough to build a rhythm when the shots don't go in. Defensively we had some miscues as far as our upside. Credit to the girls though. The girls they battled. I'm very proud of their effort here. They've grown a lot this season, they've grown a lot as a team in the last year."
It was a tough end to what was a good season for the Patriots, in my opinion.
Murren says the shots just wouldn't drop."We battled, the kids battled. We got down early there 9-0. Put ourselves in a position at 19-13, and just couldn't quite crawl our way back. Couldn't get any rhythm offensively. We just didn't have any shots fall. We struggled shooting the basketball. And that's a credit to Pender's defense, they played very well. But we just struggled getting the basketball in the hoop."
Clarkson/Leigh ends the year at 9-13.
The Patriots certainly had some nice wins this year, highlighted by upset wins at Twin River and Stanton.
Clarkson/Leigh had a great season, and did some wonderful things this year.
Paprocki is the only senior the Patriots graduate...otherwise everyone else is back.
Ashlynn Novotny, Kim Stodola, Hannah Kasik, Beth Wiese, Kaegan Held, Sydney Folken, Halee Steffenmeier, Paige Moore, and Sara McEvoy all come back for Clarkson/Leigh.
The future looks really bright for the Patriots I would say.
Clarkson/Leigh was made up of mostly freshmen and sophomores this year, and should be even better next year than they were this year.
These girls are very talented athletes, and with a lot of them being juniors and sophomores next year, expectations have to rise.
Kasik was the leading scorer on the team this season with 190 points.
The Patriots had four other players score over 100 points this season.
There was a lot accomplished and a lot to take away from this season for Clarkson/Leigh, in my opinion.
I look for the Patriots to only be better in the future.
The offseason starts now, and the more basketball these girls can play and the more fundamental things they can work on from now until the start of next season, the better off they will be, in my opinion.
I think it would also be good and beneficial for this year's squad to go watch the Girls State Tournament the first week of March.
I think it would give Clarkson/Leigh a good idea of what it's like to play in Lincoln and would give the Patriots something to work hard towards.
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