Lady Cubs get early lead, keep it

HUMBOLDT — Humboldt High’s girls took their balanced scoring attack to the extreme early Tuesday.
Six Lady Cubs scored field goals in a 14-point first quarter that gave Humboldt a lead it would never relinquish over visiting Neodesha High.
Humboldt’s defense took it from there in a 56-38 victory to snap a two-game losing streak and push the Lady Cubs to 12-5 on the season.
“It was a rough week last week,” Humboldt head coach Aubrey Jones said. “We put a little extra effort into it tonight.”
Humboldt took its 14-8 lead after one period and steadily built on it from there. The lead grew to 26-17 at halftime.
Annalise Whitcomb scored Humboldt’s last five points of the third period to push the lead to 40-25 before Neodesha scored the last five points of the quarter to cut the gap to 40-30.
The Bluestreaks drew no closer.
Lakota Wilson scored twice early in the fourth quarter to help Humboldt before Makaylah McCall drained a jumper. Breanna Kline scored next before Tilar Wells drained a 3-pointer to push the lead to 53-33.
“We were back to playing our style of basketball,” Jone said. “Sure, we missed a couple too many crib shots, but we hustled and rebounded great to make up for it. They really looked to push the ball tonight and had much better energy.”
Whitcomb and Kline shared high-scoring honors with 11 points each. Wilson scored 10 and Brook Turner had eight.
“With three kids scoring double digits, and one more just shy of that, you know they were doing a great job of sharing the ball,” Jones said. “They were back to having fun on the court tonight, and I think it showed in a big way.”
Another big key, Jones said, was defense; rebounding in particular.
“We focused a lot on boxing out,” Jones said. “We struggled with that last week.”
Carrie Knickerbocker led Neodesha with 11 points. Ciera Perry added eight.
Humboldt returns to action Friday at Fredonia.
Neodesha (9-8-13-8—38) (FG/3pt-FT-F-TP): Knickerbocker 3/1-2-1-11, Newland 0-0-1-0, Dean 2-1-5-5, Johnson 3-1-2-7, Perry 2-4-1-8, Hagerty 0-0-2-0, Keath 1-0-2-2, Lamendola 2-1-1-5. TOTALS: 13/1-9-15-38.
Humboldt (14-12-14-16—56) (FG/3pt-FT-F-TP): Umholtz 1-0-1-2, Wells 1/1-0-2-5, Turner 3-2-2-8, McCall 3-0-4-6, English 1-0-1-2, Whitcomb 3-5-4-11, Kline 4-3-1-11, Myers 0-0-1-0, Wilson 3/1-1-2-10. TOTALS: 19/2-12-18-56.