Cloquet Girls Shoot Down Hunters

Jan 5

Joe Vork-NSO

The Cloquet Lady Lumberjacks sprinted out to an early 13-0 lead over the visiting Denfeld Hunters Tuesday evening and never looked back. The Lumberjacks led at halftime by a score of 40-20 en-route to an impressive 61-48 victory.

After taking a 13-0 first half lead, Denfeld’s Rebecca Hendrickson scored in the paint to cut the Lumberjack lead to 13-2. Then after four Lumberjack points, the Hunter’s Leah Hamm drained a three point shot, making the score 17-5. This, however, is as close as the Hunters would ever get on the night.

Annabel Morrisroe continued her domination over the competition, scoring 28 points and grabbing 12 rebounds. This marks the third consecutive game she has scored over 20 points and collected over 10 rebounds. Morrisroe, who was named to the Wood City Classic All Tournament Team during the holidays, has scored 83 points in the past three games.

Coach Jeff Ojanen told NSO, “The girls came ready to go tonight; their intensity in the first half was awesome.” The intensity he was speaking of came on both offensive and defensive ends. Kialee Kutter shut down Denfeld’s Madison Pertler, one of the area’s top scorers. Pertler was held scoreless until the 12:43 mark of the second half.

Ojanen also said, “The girls are really starting to find their roles and are doing what they need to do to make this team successful. Overall we are playing good basketball and hopefully we can keep it going and pick up some victories against quality teams.”

In addition to Morrisroe’s 28 points, Sarah McMillen and Katie Pappas were also in double figures with 12 and 10 points respectively. Senior guard Brianna Henagin had 3 points, 4 rebounds, and 7 assists. Rounding out the scoring with 2 points apiece were Kialee Kutter, Krista Schmitz, and Claire Rosen.

The Lumberjacks have now won three of their last five contests and improve to 3-6 on the season. Cloquet will be back in action Thursday when they take on Crosby-Ironton.

Joe Vork can be reached at joe@northlandsportsonline.com