Louisburg girls fall in opener to Tonganoxie

Louisburg junior Ashlyn Kuhlman pulls up for a shot Friday during the Lady Cats’ season opener against Tonganoxie.

It was not the ideal scenario for the Louisburg girls basketball team going into its season debut Friday against Tonganoxie.

Louisburg struggled to get going offensively early, and couldn’t play catch-up in a 48-28 loss to the Chieftains. All of the Lady Cat players saw their first significant varsity minutes on what is a senior-less team.

“I would say on Friday all of us were a little nervous — well a lot nervous,” Louisburg coach Adrianne Lane said. “I think Tongie has a tough team this year and I bet they win a lot more games this year than they did last year. Our team had a rough start and Tongie started off super fast. We never got into our game because we were playing catch up.”

Tonganoxie jumped out to a big lead early as the Chieftains outscored the Lady Cats 18-3 in the first quarter and took a 20-point lead into halftime.

Although the Lady Cats faced a big deficit, Louisburg did its best chip away at the Tonganoxie lead as it scored 19 second half points.

“I think a positive is the girls never quit,” Lane said. “I felt like they played hard the whole game and every girl that got in the game came in off the bench and played hard. I also thought they played together. We kept running offense and working together.”

Junior Ashlyn Kuhlman led the Lady Cats in three different categories. Kuhlman scored a team-high eight points to go along with eight rebounds and three blocked shots.

Ally Brown and Jillian Asher were each second on the team with five points. Sami Lane finished with six rebounds and a team-high three assists.

Morgan Latham tallied five rebounds, Addy Stohs had four and Shylar Whiting had a team-high two steals. Sabra Brueggen had two rebounds, two assists and a steal in the loss.

Louisburg had a tough time containing Tongie point guard Alyssa Schoeneck as she tallied a double-double with 18 points, 10 rebounds and also had five steals.

The Lady Cats will try and bounce back tonight as they travel to Burlington. Tipoff is set for 6 p.m.

LOU 3 6 10 9 — 28

TON 18 11 14 5 — 48

LOUISBURG (0-1): Ashlyn Kuhlman 3-13 2-2 8; Jillian Asher 2-3 0-0 5; Ally Brown 2-8 1-3 5; Shylar Whiting 1-5 2-4 4; Morgan Latham 2-4 0-0 4; Sami Lane 0-6 2-2 2. Totals: 10-47 7-13 28. 3-point field goals: 1, (Asher)