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RANDOLPH - The Randolph boys basketball team dropped a couple of games over the past week as the regular season winds down and fell to a single game over .500.
Stuart came to Randolph on Feb. 13 and held on to defeat the Redbirds 58-51.
The Cards traveled to Elgin the night before to take on the highly rated Elgin Public/Pope John Wolfpack and made a believer out of Randolph coach Cory Simpson as the Cards were turned away, 61-39.
“They are 21-1 for a reason,” Simpson said. “It’s a credit to their big, strong athletes.”
In the game against the Broncos, the Cardinals took the lead in the third quarter, but Stuart took the contest over in the final eight minutes to claim the victory by outscoring the Red and White, 19-10.
“We won the second half,” said Simpson. “I’m proud of the way we fought back, but we need to stop giving everyone a head start.
The head start the coach was referring to was the 24-19 advantage Stuart enjoyed at the intermission.
Randolph won the third frame, 22-15, but the Stuart fourth made the difference.
Logan Lienemann poured in 18 points to lead an otherwise balanced offensive attack.
Ryan Engel added eight, Adrian Samano and Luke Harder each tossed in seven and Jaylen Junck tacked on six.
The Cardinals jumped out in the beginning of the game with the Wolfpack and led 14-13 at the end of the first quarter.
The EPPJ defense shutdown the Cards in the second, making up the deficit and scoring 18 points in the stanza to head to the break with a somewhat comfortable 31-18 lead.
The Wolfpack added eight points to the lead in the third and never looked back on the way to the 61-39 victory.
It was another balanced scoring night for Randolph with Engel and Harder setting the pace with eight points apiece.
Samano added six while Jaylen Junck, Lienemann and Kody Junck each tossed in five.
The Cardinals will close out the 2026 regular season with a home date with Boyd County here on Feb. 19.
STU (15-8) 15 9 15 19 - 58 RAN (10-9) 13 6 22 10 - 51 RANDOLPH: Jaylen Junck 2 1-2 6; Logan Lienemann 5 3-3 18; Ryan Engel 3 0-0 8; AdrianSamano31-17;TrindanZiems10-0 2; Kody Junck 1 1-2 3; Luke Harder 3 1-3 7. RAN (10-9) 14 4 7 14 - 39 EPPJ (21-1) 13 18 15 15 - 61 RANDOLPH: J. Junck 2 0-0 5; Lienemann 2 0-0 5; Brecken Shearer 1 0-0 2; Engel 2 3-4 8; Samano 3 0-0 6; K. Junck 1 3-3 5; Harder 3 2-2 8.
