Lady Royals go 1-2 in Iowa

The Lake Region State College Lady Royals basketball team traveled to Mason City, Iowa to play 3 games in 3 days.

First up for the Lady Royals was against NJCAA Division 1 ranked #18 Iowa Western Community College Reivers. It was a close game after the first with the Reivers only leading by 6. However, a big second quarter from Iowa Western pushed the lead to 17 at the half. Despite a tough shooting night for the Royals where they would make 31% of their field goals and only 25% of their three's, they battled the whole way with IWCC but could never get it closer than 10. The final Iowa Western 70 Lake Region 49. Maara Nelson led the way for the Royals with 16 points. Annie Jorgenson had 12 points, 9 rebounds and Maggie Gilbert had 10 rebounds to go along with her 8 points.

Game two for the Lady Royals was against NJCAA Division 2 ranked #9 North Iowa Area Community College. The up-tempo 40 minutes of press style of play from NIACC caused problems for the Royals all game long. LRSC would turn it over 44 times leading to easy buckets for the host team. The final score would be NIACC 112 LRSC 57. Emily Schafer had 11 points; Maggie Gilbert 13 points and Shay'Lee Dayman had 11 rebounds 4 assists and 4 points.

The third and final game for the Lady Royals was against St. Cloud Tech. LRSC came out determined to not leave Iowa empty handed. Lake Region would lead from start to finish, exploding to a 23-12 first quarter lead. They continued their lock down defense in second allowing only two points in the first six minutes to help build upon their lead. By the end of the game, the Lady Royals would turn St. Cloud over 36 times and hold them to 36% shooting from the field and 22% from three. The final LRSC 78 SCTCC 43.

Head Coach Danny Mertens had this to say about the weekend, "Overall, I am very happy with the way our girls competed. We played three tough opponents that challenged us in different ways. I really liked the way that no matter if we were up or down we played hard. We need to improve on taking better care of the ball and being confident shooters. We let IWCC & NIACC's pressure get to us and speed us up. We need to do a better job keeping our composure when teams do that."

After the weekend, the Lady Royals are now 5-4 on the year. They will travel to Belcourt, ND to take on Turtle Mountain CC on Wednesday night 6pm. In the previous matchup with TMCC the Royals were victorious 93-62.

Go Royals!