Photo by Emily Daniels Lakeview’s Haley Unke pushes the ball upcourt during their game against Kerkhoven-Murdock-Sunburg on Thursday. The Lakers defeated the Saints 47-34.

COTTONWOOD – The Lakeview girls basketball team caught fire offensively to start their game against Kerkhoven-Murdock-Sunburg and continued to maintain a double-digit lead in the second half to earn a 47-34 victory over the Saints on Thursday. The Lakers led for the entirety of the game en route to 13-point win.

Coming off of a big win against Dawson-Boyd on Tuesday, the Lakers came into this game ready to fight hard and come out with a win. The half started off slow for both teams as the score remained scoreless for the first two minutes before Lakeview saw its opportunity to score and put themselves on the board in quick fashion. The Lakers jumped out to an opening 10-0 lead on offense, but it was their defense that was the main storyline in the first half.

Lakeview held the Saints scoreless until the 12-minute mark before taking a commanding 19-4 lead. The Lakers offense saw weaknesses in the Saints defense and took advantage of that, continuing to grow their lead with every shot they took. With the Saints weak defense that was showing, the Lakers had to remain controlled on offense and that showed through Lakeview senior Haley Unke. Unke was a big asset to the Lakers offense as she racked in a total of 12 points in the first half to help Lakeview hold a 15-point lead at halftime at 28-13.

Coach Mike Imes was impressed with what the girls brought out onto the court as far as defense goes during the first half and saw the girls working together.

“The best part of the game to me was our intensity on defense in the first half we were just relentless and refused to let the other team score,” said Imes. “We were able to rebound well in our zone. We’ve been putting an emphasis on holding teams down with our zone and I thought we definitely moved our feet well.”

The Lakers came into the second half with fast ball movement on offense but a little bit of the connections they were looking to make fell through. The Saints used a 7-3 run to start the second half to cut the lead to 11, but the Lakers didn’t let that get to their heads as they continued to play tough on defense. The action on offense for both teams slowed down but the Lakers still had a steady 14-point lead over the Saints with just 11:27 left to play in the second half. KMS started to pick up their pace on offense and the Lakers defense gave up a few shots, but after that, Lakeview fought right back and picked up the pace on its offensive side. The pace slowed down on offense for the Lakers during the last few minutes of the game to bring themselves to their second win of the New Year, 47-34.

Coming off the win Unke was happy with the way her team communicated on defense and how well they were running the Saints defense. For their next game she wants to see better shot control.

“We talked very well on defense and kept our energy up the entire game and that really got us into the game tonight,” said Unke. “Energy will be key for our game tomorrow against TMB and we’re going to go out there and compete, but we need to take more controlled shots.”

The Lakers were led by Unke who finished the night with 19 points, followed by Sierra Plotz with eight and Alexis Lienemann with six. The Lakers shot 5 of 10 at the 3-point line and 14 of 16 at the free-throw line.

Imes was also very impressed with the senior leadership that was shown from the upperclassmen last night. Imes saw that they were leading by example and doing the little things that really show.

“Over Christmas break I felt we weren’t getting the leadership out of the seniors and now with our win against Dawson and then again tonight I can see that they are leading by example,” said Imes. “They’re doing the little things trying to get their team better at practice and at games and they are a fun group of girls to work with.”

Lakeview will be back in action tonight at Tracy as they take on the Panthers for the first time this season.

KMS 13 21 – 34

Lake 28 19 – 47

LAKEVIEW: Unke 5-16 6-7 19, Imes 1-3 0-0 3, Lienemann 2-5 2-2 6, Brusven 1-1 0-0 2, Plotz 3-13 1-1 8, Brower 0-3 2-2 2, Grube 0-3 3-4 3, Bot 1-4 0-0 2, Rausch 1-6 0-0 2. TOTALS: 14-54 14-16 47.

3-POINTERS: 5-10 (Unke 3-5, Imes 1-1, Plotz 1-1). REBOUNDS: 34 (Plotz 10). ASSISTS: 7 (Seven with 1). STEALS: 15 (Plotz 5). BLOCKS: 0. FOULS: 18. TURNOVERS: 16.