It’s our favorite time of the year here at South Shore! The new basketball seasons have started for the boys’ and girls’ high school teams. The girls’ team started practice November 6th, with the boys starting only a week after them. Between then and now, the girls’ team had a scrimmage November 14th, in Washburn against the Mellen Granite Diggers and the Washburn Castleguards. Since it was a scrimmage, no official score was recorded. However, the team played very well overall and seemed to compete fiercely with both teams.

On Monday, November 20th, the girls had their first real season game nearly three hours away in Lake Holcombe. Since the team suffered a few injuries pre-season and a shortage of numbers, they just played a varsity game that night. This game was completely new for the Cardinals team. Not only did they lose three out of five starters from last year, but they had never played this team before. Despite the aggressive nature of the game and different conference settings, the team played hard and was only behind by five points at half-time. In the second half, the team suffered some tough injuries. Heather Ranta, a senior, took a hard hit to the head as she fell attempting to get the rebound off a free throw. Myla Lahti, a junior, fell down hard trying to take a charge and hurt her neck. Thankfully, both the players recovered quickly and were able to finish the game. However, a junior and starter, Rylee Nicolleti, was not so fortunate. She rolled her left ankle after getting the ball caught under her feet. She has been working hard to recover and is planning on playing this Friday, December 1st, against the Ironwood Devils as her comeback. Sadly, the team was never able to recover from their point deficit and suffered a loss of 37-28. The leading scorers of the night were Signe Branham with 9 points, Myla Lahti and Taylor Nicoletti tying with 5 points, and Heather Ranta with 3 points.

The Cardinals take on the Ironwood Devils at 6:00 p.m. this Friday, December 1st. This will be their first conference game of the season. We wish them good luck and hope they return with a win!