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Lady Trojans are in the home stretch, now

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HARTINGTON - Once the MidStates Conference Tournament wraps up, the Cedar Catholic Lady Trojans only have three regular season games left on their schedule - Homer, Battle Creek and a make-up game with Pierce.

The Cedar girls are preparing for a good postseason run.

This week was expected to be a bit of a challenge. Cedar had to face Pierce on Monday. The girls had not played for nine days since a winter storm wiped the Ponca game out. The Trojans quickly shook the rust off, though to earn the 46-38 first-round win over Pierce.

Head coach Craig Wortmann said his team has to be ready to play this week right from the opening tip.

“We will need to compete hard this week as we start our tournament,” Wortmann said. “The keys to the week will be solid team defense and discipline on the offensive side to find quality shots. We will see more teams that will want to full court press so our turnovers will need to be few for us to stay in games and possibly win.”

The MidStates Tourney always prepares the team well for post-season, Wortmann said.

“We look forward to the challenge that our conference brings and we know that we will be ready for SubDistricts after playing these conference teams,” he said.

The SubDistrict tournament begins Feb. 15 and Wortmann is liking what he sees of his team as the big day draws near.

“I do feel we are ready to play our SubDistricts but we are focusing on this week’s tournament,” Wortmann said. We have six seniors and I want them to enjoy the last month of the season as best as possible. These girls have worked extremely hard over the past three years and we hope to make one more push to the state tournament and then see what happens.”

One of those seniors is Brynn Wortmann, who has been the Lady Trojans’ leading scorer and playmaker for the team.

“She has been very consistent for us and we are very fortunate to have her play with us,” Coach Wortmann said.

Brynn Wortmann paces the team’s attack averaging 17.3 ppg while Brooklyn Kuehn chips in with an 8.6 ppg pace and Laney Kathol adds 6.1 points a night.

The Lady Trojans score at a modest clip at 43.8 ppg, but since the 1-5 start, the team has held seven opponents to less than 40 points per outing.

Kuehn and Kathol lead the rebounding efforts as they allow only 6.1 and 4.9 per contest.

Cedar Catholic is also shooting 32 percent from the field while recording an assist on 36 percent of its makes. They also connect on 64 percent of free throw attempts and 27 percent from beyond the arc.

Brynn Wortmann says the defense has been the team’s saving grace during its 9-1 run.

“At the beginning of the year, I thought our offense would (be the key), but it has completely changed,” she said. “Our defense is what’s winning us games, easily.”

So, what’s going on with the offense, or in particular, the finishing touch on the shooting end of the attack?

Was the pandemic that big of an impact on the ability to score the basketball?

“We didn’t play any games this summer so game-like shots were not really happening at all so that probably did effect it,” Brynn Wortmann said. “Even, I didn’t put up as many shots as last summer - not even close. Once a week we got together and worked on dribbling and got shots up, but it’s completely different when you are doing it on your own versus another team.

“That definitely could be a big factor.”

Brynn Wortmann did say the team’s actual offensive machinations are in place and work to get the girls open.

It’s just about closing the deal.

“It’s the finishing part and the actual putting the ball in the bucket,” she said. “The getting open part, we are pretty good at, it’s just the shots that aren’t going in.”

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