Nemaha Central and Perry-Lecompton split a pair of games on Friday night with the Thunder winning the girls contest handily 46-15, and the Kaws won the boys contest in a close one by a final score of 42-36.

To say Nemaha Central was dominant in the first quarter would be an understatement. The Thunder took a page out of the football team’s playbook and shut out the Kaws 13-0 in the first eight minutes of the game and had a 13-0 lead.

The Kaws got their offense going a little bit as Taylor Damme made two of the team’s three field goals in the second quarter. The Thunder then ramped up towards the end of the quarter to take a healthy 27-8 lead into the break.

The Thunder defense persisted in the second half by only allowing one field goal make in the third quarter and got steady offensive production. They took a hefty 36-15 lead into the final quarter.

Nemaha Central allowed another scoreless quarter in the final period and pulled away for the sizable 46-15 win.

Cami Dalinghaus led Nemaha Central in scoring and is our Farmers State Bank Player of the Game. Zoey Sudbeck had a solid performance as well with ten points. Reagan Gerety added nine points to boot.

Taylor Damme had 11 of the team’s 15 points with her sister Paxton Damme scoring the other four points.

In the boys game, it was tight the whole first half. Ronnie Baker scored five points in the first quarter for the Kaws and Eli Dean added four.

Dean continued his hot shooting by singlehandedly keeping Perry-Lecompton in the game. He scored all nine of the team’s points in the second quarter. Abe Hilbert established his dominance in the post by scoring a couple of and-ones. Nemaha Central would lead at the half 23-22.

In the third quarter, Perry-Lecompton would see Cooper Trendel come up big off the bench and score some big baskets along with a couple of breakaway layups by Ayden Graves. The Kaws would retake the lead at the end of the third quarter 35-31.

Both defenses stepped up for a low-scoring fourth quarter with only two field goal makes combined. However, it was the Kaws that made clutch free throws and got big-time stops to hold on for the two-possession win.

Dean finished with 17 points to lead all scorers and is the Player of the Game brought to you by Farmers State Bank. Ronnie Baker added eight points and Trendel had seven.

For Nemaha Central, Hilbert led the way with 12 points, Evan Olberding had ten points, including all five of the Thunder’s fourth quarter points.

Nemaha Central will host Sabetha on Tuesday night. Those games will be on 92.1 FM KMZA and streaming on the Sabetha Channel. As for Perry-Lecompton, they travel to Hoyt for a Big 7 showdown against Royal Valley to wrap up the 2023 portion of their schedule.