Con Marshall
Both Chadron State College basketball teams will play at home Saturday, Nov. 30 against the Nebraska-Kearney Lopers. The women’s game will begin at 3 p.m. and the men’s game at 5.
The double-header will provide the final non-conference contests for all four teams before they launch the schedules in their respective conferences at home on Thursday, Dec. 5.
The Chadron State women are 1-4 after defeating the York Panthers 92-72 last Monday night, while the CSC men are 2-5.
The Kearney women are off to a 5-2 start after winning their first four games before losing 65-58 to Adams State and 67-57 to Wayne State. They bounced back to overwhelm Nebraska Wesleyan 90-33 a week ago Saturday, Nov. 23 in their most-recent game.
The Wayne State women also won 73-64 over Chadron State on Nov. 9.
The Kearney men are 1-4. They lost their first four games by a total of nine points before blasting York 92-49 this past Tuesday night.
All four teams have relatively new head coaches. Both Travis Brewster at Chadron State and Drew Jones at Kearney became the women’s coaches a year ago, while Chris Francis at CSC and Marty Levinson at UNK are in their first season as the men’s head mentors.
Through the first five games, senior forward Shay Powers is the leading scorer for the Chadron State woman with a 15.8-point average. Meg Burns, a 5-11 grad student, is the Lady Lopers’ top scorer after the seven games with a 13.3 average.
On the men’s side, both senior guard Jalen Thomas and junior forward Trey Ballard are averaging just over 12 points to pace the Eagles and Chase Thompson, a 6-6 senior, is averaging 17.8 points to lead the Lopers.