Jacks Pound Spartans

Kerry Rodd – NSO

Kassidy Steen pumped in 29 points and continued her torrid scoring streak in helping to lead the Cloquet girls basketball team to a 65-48 win over Superior at home on Tuesday night.

The Lumberjacks raced off to a quick start off the opening tip as they built a 10-1 lead by continually pounding the ball inside to their star center. While the smaller, but very quick Spartans, tried to figure out how to deal with Steen’s presence inside the Jacks were building a big lead as they took a 32-20 edge into halftime.

In the second half the Spartans ran a number of defenses at Cloquet including a 2-3 zone, a tough man-to-man with defenders sagging inside trying to take away Steen’s height advantage and throughout the second half they ran a trapping full court press in an effort to create turnovers.

With just under 10 minutes remaining the Spartans had cut the Jacks lead to single digits, but eventually the Jacks were able to solve the Superior full court pressure and pulled away to the win. Another a huge key to the win was Cloquet’s outside play which hit four 3-pointers and also found ways to slash to the basket when the Spartans over played the inside against Steen.

Anna Fossen and Kaylee McMillen were both in double figures in scoring with 11 and 10 points respectively, Nicole Blatchford added five points, Kendra Kelly and Allie Wojtysiak both had four points and Hazel Erickson added a pair of points for Cloquet.

Mackenzie Kmecik led the Spartans with 16 points and was the only Spartan in double figures.

Kerry Rodd can be reached at kerry@norhtlandsportsonline.com