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HARTINGTON - High school basketball teams do a lot of changing from year to year so it’s hard to tell just how good any team can be from previous seasons.
Add in the fact that schedules are sometimes made years in advance and you pretty much take the schedule as it comes.
That’s exactly what the HNS Lady Wildcats are experiencing as they are in a stretch of games that included or will include two undefeated teams, a very solid West Holt team and they will follow that with a trip to Humphrey Jan. 13 to take on Archangels Catholic which is currently 8-4.
The Lady ‘Cats played three of these four teams over the past 10 days — and unbeaten Bloomfield and unbeaten Elkhorn Valley this past week back-to-back.
The Lady Falcons came to Hartington Jan. 9 and went home with a 68-22 win and the Lady Wildcats traveled to Bloomfield and left with a 63-35 loss.
Elkhorn Valley showed up and proved why the team was highly regarded and unbeaten.
The Lady Falcons sprinted to a 23-5 lead at the end of the first quarter and upped it to 38-14 at the break.
They added 20 more points in the third and a bucket in the final eight minutes.
Vayda Lippert was the lone Lady Wildcat in double figures with 14, Karissa Bruning added four, Ziva Stratman had three and Nora Lange had a free throw.
Lippert also led on the boards with six. It was more of the same on the trip to Bloomfield, but Hartington-Newcastle hung around early on.
The Lady ‘Cats managed just six points in the first frame, but responded with 14 in the second period.
Unfortunately Bloomfield put up 34 points in the half to send the teams to the halftime locker room with HNS trailing 34-20 and they added 14 points to the lead in the final 16 minutes.
Lippert again led the Lady ‘Cats with 15 points and got some help from Lange who put up 12.
Bruning added five and Ella Eickhoff chipped in with three.
HNS will return home to take on Tri County Northeast on Jan. 15.
H-N (3-8) 5 9 4 4 - 22 EV (11-0) 23 15 24 6 - 68 HARTINGTON-NEWCASTLE: Vayda Lippert 5-23 3-3 14; Nora Lange 0-4 1-2 1; Karissa Bruning 2-8 0-0 4; Hadley Grutsch 0-1 0-0 0; Ziva Stratman 1-4 0-0 3. H-N (3-8) 6 14 10 5 - 35 BLO (11-0) 14 20 20 9 - 63 HARTINGTON-NEWCASTLE: Lippert 6-19 1-2 15; Lange 5-9 1-1 12; Bruning 2-5 1-4 5; Grutsch 0-2 0-0 0; Katelyn Uldrich 0-1 0-0 0; Kloe Fischer 0-3 0-0 0; Ella Eickhoff 1-5 1-4 3; Stratman 0-2 0-0 0.
