By DELBERT PETERS

Staff writer

The Goessel girls basketball team lost to Central Christian — the fourth-ranked team in 1A — Saturday, 42-37, in the third-place game of the Berean Tournament at Elbing.

Goessel’s first field goal came with less than 30 seconds left in the first quarter. The sputtering offense continued in the second period until about two minutes left in the half. Central Christian led 28-8, but the Bluebirds got Kendra Flaming open for seven unanswered points to go into halftime trailing, 28-15. 

Eight points from Karis Janzen in the third quarter helped the Bluebirds cut into the deficit even more, trailing 38-29 at the end of the period. Goessel kept pace with the Cougars into the fourth quarter hoping to upset the highly ranked team from Hutchinson. Janzen hit a bucket and made a free throw. Flaming scored four points and the Bluebirds trailed 40-36 in the noisy Berean gym. That would be as close as Goessel could get as Central hit two free throws to Goessel’s one free throw, closing out the game with a score of 42-37.

Goessel’s senior point guard Aspen Frey and junior scoring leader Flaming were named to the All Tournament Team.

Flaming and Janzen led Goessel with 11 points each. Frey had 6, Karina Harvey 5, Jessica Goertzen 2, and Shanna Klassen 2.

 Douglass 43 - Goessel 39

Twenty-three turnovers on Thursday haunted the Bluebird girls as they made a vicious attack at the end of the game, but came up four points short.  Flaming hit 3-of-4 3-pointers, two of them in the fourth quarter and 5-foot-2 guard Karina Harvey scored six points in the lane during the last minute of the game. The deficit of twelve points at the beginning of the fourth quarter was just too much to overcome. Although the Bluebirds could only muster four points in the third period, they scored 21 points in the fourth quarter to nearly pull off the come-from-behind story.

Flaming led all scorers with season-high 18 points, Harvey added 7 points, Shanna Klassen dropped in 6 points, Aspen Frey scored 6 to go along with five assists and three steals, Jessica Goertzen scored 1 and Karis Janzen grabbed five rebounds and scored 1 point.

 Goessel 47-Bluestem 28

 The Bluebirds breezed to victory in the first round of the Berean Tournament on Tuesday. Goessel jumped out to a 10-3 lead in the first quarter, and by the end of the period led 16-8. The Lions went scoreless for over nine minutes and Goessel proceeded to notch a 28-9 lead at halftime. The scoring in the third and fourth quarters was closer, but the lead swelled to 24 points, 45-21, midway through the fourth quarter as the Bluebirds coasted to their eighth victory of the season, 47-28.

Statistics between the two teams were surprisingly close, except at the free-throw line. Goessel converted 16-of-27 free throws to the Lions 4-of-11. Leading the way for the Bluebirds were Flaming with 13 points. Karina Harvey was a blistering 6-of-7 from the free-throw line with a season high total of 12 points. Karis Janzen led the team with ten rebounds followed by Jennifer Van Horn with seven boards.

Scoring in the first-round game for Goessel was Flaming 13, Harvey 12, Frey 7, Goertzen 5, Janzen 4, Johanna Hoffman 2, Klassen 2, and Van Horn 2.