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The Northland Lady Eagles returned to the hardwood with long-time head coach Jenny Kovall at the helm. Non-conference opponent Blackduck traveled to Remer Saturday, November 24 for a rematch of last year's opening game. The girls played well and last year's loss turned into a 46-40 win to begin the '12-'13 season.

"We were a little sloppy, which is to be expected, but it is nice to pull out a win to start the season," Coach Kovall commented.

Senior, Abby Burch picked up on offense where she left off last season, leading the team with 15 points and 13 rebounds to go with a pair of steals on defense. Eighth grader, Kali Wake made her presence felt with an even dozen points to begin her Varsity career. Second year Varsity Sophomore Chloe Wolske turned in an eight point, six steal night. The girls were strong under the glass with Burch's 13 boards, Senior, Lizzy Procopio brought in 10 rebounds followed by eighth grader, Kris Johnson with seven to go with five take-aways.

"We have an extremely hard working group of girls this year, defense is going to be our strength. I'm impressed with the hustle of the eighth graders with their first varsity appearance. We just have so much to build on, it will be exciting to watch them grow," concluded Coach Kovall.

The Lady Eagles hit the road for the first away game of the season on Thursday to Cromwell. Despite playing better and tighter basketball, the girls found a deeper and more experienced Cardinal team more than they could handle at this point in the season and fell by 16, 50-66.

"The girls played awesome, we were in the game the entire way. Cromwell has a lot of veterans and we made some young mistakes, but I think we learned from them tonight," said Coach Kovall.

The girls trailed by only seven at the half and brought the score within two at one point and with four minutes left in the contest it was still only a seven point deficit.

"We shot poorly from the free-throw line and that may have cost us the game. I'm proud of them for their effort on both sides of the ball. Even though we came up short, this was a much-improved game," concluded Coach Kovall.

Burch led the team with 22 points and six rebounds; Procopio added nine points and eight boards while Junior, Angie Rajdl chipped in eight points and nine rebounds.[[In-content Ad]]

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