The Langford Area girls basketball team had a couple of tight battles in the past week and came away with a split.
Coach Michael Alberts’ club downed Wilmot 61-55 in overtime on Saturday and fell to Britton-Hecla 50-45 on Friday. LA, now 6-11, hosts Faulkton on Friday (varsity only – girls 6 p.m., boys to follow), takes on Jones County in the Warner Classic at 1 p.m. on Saturday, and plays at Aberdeen Christian on Tuesday (JV girls 4 p.m., JV boys, varsity girls, varsity boys to follow) in their final regular season contest.
Langford Area 61 (OT)
Wilmot 55
Langford Area rallied from a four-point deficit after three quarters to force overtime and then outscored Wilmot 14-8 in the extra period.
The Lady Lions led 10-7 and 16-13 at the first two quarter breaks but Wilmot outscored the hosts 17-10 in the third stanza. LA rallied with a 21-point outburst in the final eight minutes of regulation to knot the game at 47-all.
“Lately, we have had really tough battles with Wilmot. ,” said Alberts. “The games have gone back and forth all game and this one was no different! We had a couple chances to put this one away at the end of regulation, but Addison Heinje hit a three at the end of regulation to go into overtime.
“I was very proud of our girls for not letting that shot get to them and get them down,” added Alberts. “Our girls really stepped up when they needed to on both ends of the court. We were able to make some big shots and get some big stops in OT to earn the win.”
Alex Darling and Paytyn Marlow had big nights for the Lady Lions. Darling netted 23 points, including five treys, and Marlow contributed 20 counters with four buckets from downtown.
WILMOT: Jada Cameron 4 1-2 12, Lorn Harstad 3 1-2 7, Emilie Metz 2 1-4 6, Mya Heinje 1 0-0 3, Addison Heinje 8 10-10 27. Totals 18 13-18 55.
LANGFORD AREA: Paytyn Marlow 5 6-12 20, Lizzie Gustafson 1 2-2 4, Alex Darling 5 8-12 23, Eliana Darling 3 3-4 9, Clarissa Guy 2 0-0 4, Josie Jensen 0 1-2 1. Totals 16 20-32 61.
Wilmot (9-10) 7 13 30 47 55
LA (6-11) 10 16 26 47 61
3-point goals – Cameron 3, Metz, M. Heinje, A. Heinje; Marlow 4, A. Darling 5. Fouled out – M. Heinje. Total fouls – Wilmot 21; LA 17.
Britton-Hecla 50
Langford Area 45
Britton-Hecla grabbed an eight-point halftime lead and then had to weather a late Langford Area rally to post the win.
The Lady Braves scored the last four points of the opening period to lead 10-5 and went on an 8-3 run over the final four minutes of the half to hold a 23-15 halftime advantage.
B-H boosted that margin to 32-19 but LA cut that to 38-29 at the break as Alex Darling hit eight points in a two-minute stretch including a trey at the buzzer.
Eliana Darling netted three fielders, Alex Darling hit a couple, and Paytyn Marlow converted a three-point play to cut the margin to 47-42 with 2:03 left. Another Marlow three-point play made it 49-45 with 42 seconds remaining but the Lady Lions didn’t score again.
“We got off to a slow start and Britton-Hecla’s press may have had us trying to play too fast, forcing us to have a lot of turnovers early and not shooting great in the first half,” noted Alberts. “We started taking better care of the ball in the second half and started to get a few more shots to fall. We also started playing more aggressive on defense and started getting to the basket better. We were able to come back a little but came up a little short.”
Alex Darling laced 20 for LA and Marlow had 10.
BRITTON-HECLA: Karlie Zuehlke 0 2-4 2, Rae Ann Hagenson 0 0-2 0, Heather Storbakken 5 2-2 14, Daynika Zuehlke 4 0-4 8, Mallory Grupe 3 1-2 7, Maddie Micko 6 0-0 12, Chellon Pruitt 3 1-2 7. Totals 21 6-16 50.
LANGFORD AREA: Paytyn Marlow 4 2-7 10, Lizzie Gustafson 1 0-0 2, Alex Darling 8 2-4 20, Eliana Darling 3 1-2 7, Mariah Tosse 3 0-0 6. Totals 19 5-13 45.
BH (4-11) 10 23 38 50
LA (5-11) 5 15 29 45
3-point goals – Storbakken 2; A. Darling 2. Total fouls – BH 15, LA 17.
