In a back-and-forth battle among two Packerland Conference’s top teams, the Sevastopol Pioneers edged out the Kewaunee Storm 38-33 on 104.1 WRLU.  

 

It was a low-scoring, defensive battle early on as both teams slowed the action down, going into the halftime break with Sevastopol leading 14-13. Kewaunee’s Brianna Demmin and Sevastopol’s Kayla Ranly lead each team with six first-half points

 

In the second half, the scoring picked up a bit.  Kewaunee’s leading scorer, guard Jade Kroll, was held scoreless in the first, came out with two early 3’s, and led the Storm to take the lead back.  Kewaunee would lead by as much as 5 in the second half, led by Demmin and Kroll, who would finish the game with 12 and 10 points, respectively.  

 

Then came the comeback from the Sevastopol Pioneers.  Naomi Rikkola, coming off her season-high 36-point game on Saturday, was also held in check in the first half, scoring only 2 points in the opening period. However, Rikkola would explode to score 19 of her game-high 21 points in the 2nd half, including a 3-point shot that put the Pioneers up 32-30 with under a minute to play.  As the Storm tried to foul to keep time on the clock, Rikkola would close the game out with 6 made free throws in the final 30 seconds of action, leading Sevastopol to the comeback win. 

 

After the game, Kayla Ranly, Naomi Rikkola, and Pioneers head coach Ben Rikkola all joined 104.1 WRLU to talk about their thought process during the comeback.