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CLEARWATER — The Hartington- Newcastle Lady Wildcats dropped a pair of games to open the 2025-26 campaign 50-26 to Summerland on the road Dec. 5 and to Ponca at home 54-41 on Dec. 4 to fall to 0-2 on the young season.
The Lady Bobcats sprinted out early in the game leading 15-4 after the first quarter.
“Summerlands defensive adjustments bothered us and I didn’t feel like we had the same energy or confidence we had the night before,” said Hartington-Newcastle coach Grant Rolfes. “We forced things on offense and the sluggishness seemed to carry over to our defensive effort too.”
The lead grew to 24-8 by the half and 40-18 by the end of the third.
Summerland outscored the Lady ‘Cats 10-6 to post the final score.
Lippert was a bright spot on the evening as she put in 15 points, Nora Lange had a couple of buckets while Karissa Bruning and Ella Eickhoff each had two points.
“We are a young team and will take what we can from games where we are not at our best,” Rolfes said. “We will continue to work hard on improving.”
In the game at home against the Lady Indians, Lippert poured in a career high 31 points.
The Lady Wildcats were right in the game after the opening eight minutes trailing 16-13.
Unfortunately, Ponca outscored HNS by 10 in the second quarter to put the Lady ‘Cats behind the eight ball.
“First of all, credit to Coach (Chad) Clay and the Ponca girls, they are an athletic well-coached team,” said Rolfes. “We struggled to guard them and get consistent stops.”
Hartington-Newcastle played with the Lady Indians the second half as both teams scored 15 points in the third then nine in the fourth to reach the final tally.
Lippert canned 12-of-21 shots from the field, 5-of-11 from long distance and 2-of-3 from the charity stripe.
She also pulled down nine rebounds to just miss a doubledouble.
Bruning added five points and grabbed six boards.
Hartington-Newcastle was scheduled to host Boyd County on Dec. 9 before traveling to O’Neill to take on the dangerous St. Mary’s Dec. 12.
SUM (2-0) 15 9 16 10 - 50 HNS (0-2) 4 4 10 6 - 24 HARTINGTON-NEWCASTLE: Vayda Lippert 6-14 0-2 15; Nora Lange 0-5 4-6 4; Karissa Bruning 1-3 0-2 2; Hadley Grutsch 0-6 1-3 1; Katelyn Ulrich 0-1 0-1 0; Kloe Fischer 0-2 0-0 0; Ella Eickhoff 1-7 0-0 0; Ziva Stratman 0-5 0-0 0. Ponca Game HNS (0-2) 13 4 15 9 - 41 PON (1-0) 16 14 15 9 - 54 HARTINGTON -NEWCASTLE: Lippert 12-21 2-3 31; Lange 1-3 0-2 2; Bruning 2-5 1-4 5; Grutsch 0-1 0-0 0; Fischer 1-7 0-0 2; Eickhoff 0-3 1-2 1; Stratman 0-4 0-0 0.
