The Exira-EHK Spartans girls basketball team held serve on their home floor Saturday evening with a 57-52 win over the Kuemper Catholic Knights.  The Spartans set the tone early with their tough defense and raced out to a 16-5 early lead and led by 5 at 18-13 at the end of the 1st. The Spartans pushed that advantage to 13 by halftime 35-22. Kuemper Catholic clawed their way back within 4 by the end of the third. The Knights would take a one point lead midway through the fourth quarter at 50-49. That was their first lead since a 3-2 advantage early in the game. The Spartans responded immediately as freshman Tatum Grubbs drove to the hoop and got fouled. She stepped up and hit the free throws to put the Spartans back ahead by one and they wouldn’t trail again.

Free throws were big in sealing the victory as the Spartans made 11-12 in the fourth quarter and 17-23 for the game. Sophia Peppers went 8 of 8 at the stripe in the fourth quarter and finished as the leading scorer with 19 points. Grubbs finished with 12 and Kealey Nelson had 11. The Spartans improved to 14-1 and have a big game at CAM next on Tuesday night.

The Knights were led by 17 points from Aimee Adams and 12 from Kara Peter. The Knights are now 11-5 and will host Harlan next Friday.

Listen to a post-game interview with Exira-EHK Head Coach Tom Petersen below.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (8.6MB)

Subscribe: RSS