Girls Basketball Earns First Win Of Young Season Against Sturgis West

Photography by Chris Tran

The Whaler girls basketball team won their first game of the season 40-24 Thursday evening against the Sturgis West Navigators. The team was led by sophomore guard/forward Maddie Lombardi, who scored a team-high 14 points.

The game began with a pair of threes by Lombardi, set up by nice passing that created the open looks. After a low scoring first quarter where Nantucket led 10-3, the Whalers ramped it up offensively in the second quarter and outscored the Navigators 18-7 to make it a 28-10 lead at halftime.

Before the Whalers pulled away and built their 18-point lead before half, they were up 16-3 when the Navigators suddenly scored five straight points to make it an eight-point game (16-8).

But senior point guard Ciara Barnett made sure that the Navigator’s five-point run would extend no further when she found senior center Kacey Riseborough on the fastbreak with a nice pass that led to an easy layup to make it 18-8.

Barnett followed up her nice pass with a three-point make to make it 21-8, and then another nice pass to Riseborough for an easy layup that gave Nantucket a 23-8 lead. Lombardi and sophomore guard Alana Ludvigson closed out the first half with a three-point make and fastbreak layup respectively to extend their lead further.

The second half featured a lot of missed baskets and turnovers, but Nantucket still managed to limit the number of offensive chances the Navigators would get. They limited Sturgis West to 14 points in the final two quarters.

Barnett finished the game with 13 points and is now averaging 14 points per game through her first two performances.

The Whalers will attempt to improve their record to 2-1 and be back in action on Saturday, December 17, when they travel to Carver to take on the Crusaders at 12:30 p.m.