BEA guard Lola Lundquist dribbles around a defender during a home game played earlier this season. The BEA girls defeated Sibley East 67-34 on Dec. 27 to end a 37-game losing streak.

The Blue Earth Area Buccaneers girls basketball team picked up their second consecutive win when they went on the road to defeat the Worthington Trojans 73-51 on Dec. 30.

The Bucs led 44-28 at the half and continued their strong play by outscoring the Trojans 29-23 in the final 18 minutes of the game.

BEA was led in scoring by Lola Lundquist with 24 points, Myla Eastman with 20, Emersen Weir with 11, Madelyn Humburg with nine, Ella Swanson with seven and Emily Schrader with two.

The Bucs return to action on Tuesday, Jan. 6, when they go on the road to face the Jackson County Central Huskies. Their road tour will continue with a game at Redwood Falls against the Redwood Valley Cardinals on Friday, Jan. 9.

BEA 67, Sibley East 34

It was a big win for the Blue Earth Area girls basketball team when they defeated the Sibley East Wolverines 67-34 in Blue Earth on Dec. 27.

It was the first win of the season for the Bucs and it also broke a losing streak of 37 games that stretched back to Feb. 19, 2024 when BEA defeated the Medford Tigers.

Fueled by senior guard Lola Lundquist’s 20 first-half points, the Bucs took a 38-23 lead into the intermission. BEA then outscored the Wolverines by a 29-11 margin in the closing half to gain the 33-point victory.

The Bucs, who never trailed in the game, got on the board first with a three-pointer by Emersen Weir. After Sibley East’s Bethany Reierson scored to cut BEA’s lead to one point, Grace Schavey connected from outside the arc to give the Bucs a 6-2 lead.

The Wolverines kept the score close and were only trailing 12-11 with just under 13 minutes to play in the opening half. However, the Bucs began to pull away at that point.

Lundquist sank a three-pointer and then took the ball to the hoop for an easy basket to extend BEA’s lead to 17-11 before another basket by Reierson cut the Bucs’ lead to 17-13.

A steal and a layup by Myla Eastman and a basket off an offensive rebound by Eastman gave BEA a little more breathing room at 21-13.

Lundquist added another three-pointer and a layup before finding Weir open for an easy basket that increased the Bucs’ lead to 28-13.

With the clock winding down to end the first half of play and BEA holding a 35-23 lead, Lundquist banked home a three-pointer with half a second left on the scoreboard clock to make the score 38-23 heading into the final 18 minutes of play.

A three-pointer by Weir, two drives for baskets by Eastman, a three pointer by Ella Swanson, two more baskets from behind the arc by Lundquist and a layup by Lundquist enabled BEA to outscore Sibley East 18-4 to open the second half and give the Maroon and Gold a 56-27 lead eight and a half minutes into the second stanza.

The Bucs’ biggest lead of the night was 35 points at the 7:24 mark of the second half and the score showing BEA in front 64-29.

Lundquist finished the game with 28 points to lead all players in scoring. Weir also reached double figures with 14 points as did Eastman who finished with 10 points.

Madelyn Humburg led BEA in rebounding with eight.

Weir and Schavey each had three steals followed by Swanson with two.

Bailey Devlaeminck led Sibley East with 11 points while Bridget Biron was their top rebounder with nine.

As a team, the Bucs were 17-for-44 (38.6 percent) from inside the arc and 9-for-26 (34.6 percent) from outside the arc. BEA made half of their free throw attempts. They attempted 12 free throws and made six.

The Wolverines were 10-for-38 (26.3 percent) from two-point range and 3-for-14 (21.4 percent) from two-point range. Sibley East attempted 11 free throws and made five (45.5 percent).

The Bucs scored 32 of their points in the paint compared to 12 for Sibley East.

BEA had a 43-40 edge in rebounding.

The Bucs also did a better job of taking care of the ball committing only 10 turnovers compared to 24 for the Wolverines. BEA had 11 steals and blocked three of Sibley East’s shots. The Wolverines had four steals and one blocked shot.