By Andrew Shaw
The North Iowa Lady Bison brought home a win at their season opener in Northwood last Monday, Nov. 24. The Lady Bison opened a wide lead in the first half, with a 31-14 advantage, but Northwood-Kensett refused to lie down. The Vikings fought their way back to a tie at the end of the fourth, 51-51. North Iowa regained their footing in overtime and led 10-3 to secure their first win of the season, 61-54.
Emma Eichenberger led the Lady Bison offense with 19 points, followed by Brooklyn Price with 12.
“It was nice to open the season with a win,” said North Iowa Head Coach Andrew Hanna. “We didn’t play as well as we would have liked but definitely showed progress when compared to previous years. Something we need to continue to work on is making better decisions with the ball and not turning the ball over so much. We definitely let Northwood hang around longer than we would have liked, but we managed to pull it off in OT.”
Eichenberger was also her team’s leader in rebounds, as she collected 11, and Price had 10. Both girls had four steals on Monday night, and Price led in assist with five, followed by Isla Potter with four.
NI 16 15 8 12 10 61
N-K 5 9 17 20 3 54
The Lady Bison were back on the court Tuesday night, with a road game at West Fork. North Iowa had a hard time keeping up and trailed in each of the first three quarters. The girls outscored the Warhawks by three points in the fourth quarter, but they were in too deep of a hole and lost the night, 42-61.
“It was a little tough for our girls playing back-to-back nights at West Fork,” said Coach Hanna. “With only 10 healthy girls, we don’t have the numbers to play too many nights in a row.” He notes Taylor Henrickson sat out Tuesday night due to an injury.
“As the year goes on and the girls improve both with our program and conditioning, I think we’ll be okay once the games start to pick up,” said Coach Hanna.
Bella Langfald was North Iowa’s scoring leader on Tuesday with 20 points, followed by Price with 12. Eichenberger made seven rebounds, and Langfald and Maddie Newton each had five. Potter made four assists, and Lexi Gray had three steals.
WF 14 16 23 8 61
NI 11 5 15 11 42
