St Mary’s Cardinal Basketball opened their season on Friday in Howard. After a 3rd place finish at state a year ago, the Cardinal boys looked to start their new season off right. They did just that, as Paxton Beckman’s 17 leads the Cards to an opening win.
The starting five for St Mary’s consisted of three seniors; Trimmier Hanson, Lincoln Lebrun, and Peyton Lamb. Alongside the three seniors were Joe Trumbauer, a sophomore, and Logan Bauer, a junior. St Mary’s ran a deep 11-man rotation, with Gavin Pica, Josh Liebl, Isaac Griffin, Isaac Ahlers, Colter Griffin, and Paxton Beckman all seeing the court in the 54-50 win.
First Half
Things started off slowly offensively in this game. With nearly three minutes gone in the first quarter, Lebrun connected on a three for the Cards first bucket. The offenses for both teams struggled to get going. Despite the slow start offensively, the Cardinal defense held Howard to 9 in the first. Four points for Hanson in the quarter along with another Lebrun bucket brought the score to 9-9 to end the first quarter.
Hanson, Lamb, Lebrun, Trumbauer and Beckman were the first group out for the second quarter. Shortly into the quarter, Beckman put up and made a three for the 8th graders first varsity bucket. Beckman would hit another three not 20 seconds later, seeming to swing the momentum. Two more points from Hanson, along with I Griffin, Ahlers, and Trumbauer each getting buckets would make it 27-19 at half. Additionally, Lamb would finish the quarter with four points
Second Half
Similarly to the first quarter, Bauer, Trumbauer, Hanson, Lebrun, and Lamb started out the third. Lamb started the offense off in the second half. He connected twice before another two Beckman three-pointers. I Griffin would score the next four points, including an and-1 finish for the freshman. The third quarter would end 42-37 in favor of the Cards.
Identically to the third, the same five started the fourth as well. Beckman would start things off with yet another three. Hanson would score the next bucket for St Mary’s, Lamb would take the next two Cardinal buckets. This would lead to the final, 54-50.
Beckman’s 17 leads the Cards this time around. Lamb finished with 12 in addition to Hanson’s 9. I Griffin finished with 6 points correspondingly, Lebrun finished with 5. Trumbauer added 3 alongside Ahlers adding 2. Lamb would finish with a double-double with 10 rebounds, Beckman, Trumbauer, and Lebrun each totaled 5 boards. Lebrun added 5 steals to his stat line with Trumbauer stealing the ball twice. Hanson, Ahlers, and Lamb would each add steals.
After the win over Howard, the Cardinal boys will go on the road on Tuesday to take on the Mitchell Christian Golden Eagles. That game will be on Big Sioux Media at https://www.youtube.com/@BigSiouxMedia/streams.
