Pine City Moves to 2-0 in Conference Play after Beating Aitkin Saturday

Pine City girls hosted Aitkin on Saturday.

The girls basketball team had a busy end to their week, on Friday they played in the cities against St Croix Prep, then had to turn around and play again Saturday afternoon.

Some fatigue was sure to play a factor in this midday game, especially this early in the season. But Pine City did not let that hold them back, despite the slow start. Vivian Lahti got them on the board first with a three. The Dragons did a good job of moving the ball around, there wasn't a single player who wasn't contributing on the floor. Defensively, they played well, but there were some things they wanted to sure up. As the half went along both teams were really getting into rhythm. But after the Dragons took the lead early on, they never looked back. They went into half with a 32-21 lead.

Both teams started the 2nd half where they left off in the 1st, which made for an entertaining finish. Each team seemingly took turns with a scoring run. But the Dragons never let the game slip away. Their offense was getting better as the game went along as did their defense. Late in the game, they started to pull away and put the game out of reach. Their defense had a total of 21 steals in the game, not to mention the other turnovers they forced. By the end of the game, the Dragons came out on top 63-43.

With the win the Dragons move back to .500 on the season at 2-2, and sit 2-0 in conference play.

Pine City will host Mora on Tuesday, trying to add another win to their early conference season.

Scoring

Pine City:

Mallory Clepper 21 points, 3 rebounds, 2 steals and a block

Kate Unverzagt 12 points, 8 rbounds, 11 steals and a block

Brooke Boland 11 points, 7 rebounds, 2 steals

Maggie Judd 8 points, 1 rebound

Reyah Johnson 5 points 4 rebounds, 2 steals

Vivian Lahti 3 points 3 rebounds, 2 steals

Rhetta Ganote 3 points