On Saturday morning, win or lose, the Alma Cardinals were going to make history. Let's go back to last Friday, February 28th. Alma's win in the D1-5 District Final against Brady, 63-23, advanced them to the Girls NSAA State Basketball Tournament for the first time in their school's history.
Then, on Wednesday of this week, the #5 seeded Alma Cardinals played #4 seed Superior, 45-36. This ensured the Cardinals were coming home with some hardware, and it was their first-ever State Tournament Win.
The Cardinals then faced #1 seeded Pender. They were down by a large margin in the third, but they battled back and dropped the game 53-40.
On Saturday morning, the Cardinals played another tough opponent, #6 seed Cedar Catholic, in the Consolation Finals, Which were held at Lincoln Standing Bear High School.
We visited with Head Coach Amanda Davis before the game.
Alma again played hard until the very end but fell 48-33. For Alma, it was similar to Friday's semifinal game; they had excellent looks on offense, but the ball just wouldn't go in the hoop.
Despite the offensive struggles, Alma led 10-8. However, they left some points off the board, as the Cardinals were 1-10 from the charity stripe in the opening period.
Both teams continued to face offensive challenges. The action and passing were good, but shots were not falling. Cedar Catholic led going to the half, 22-17.
Check out the game's highlights brought to you by Prairie Girl Candle Company!
In the third quarter, Alma opened with a strong second half, back-to-back buckets by Kamryn Scott cutting the deficit to 22-21. Cedar Catholic, though, answered back with an offensive rally of its own.
The Cardinals trailed by the same margin as they did at halftime, five points, 33-28.
In the fourth quarter, the Trojans outscored Alma 15-5 to close out the game.
For Cedar Catholic, Katelyn Arens recorded 22 points and Addison Walter had 13 points. Anisten Wortmann had eight.
For Alma, Kamryn Scott scored 17 points, Tierston Moore scored six, and Miley Whitney scored five. We don't have an official number of blocks for Chayse Molzahn, but again, she blocked shots left and right.
Cedar Catholic finishes 17-12. This is the third time they have finished in third, with the other two times in 2011 and 2023 in Class C2.
Alma closes the season with its first-ever state appearance, win, and 4th-place trophy in Girls' Basketball. It ends the year at 21-8.
Our Player of the Game, brought to you by Farmers National Company - Lori Harding Real Estate Sales went to Kamryn Scott of Alma.
