Lady Bobcats headed to the 'ship

The 19-3 Summerland girls' basketball team will face the Ponca Indians, Friday, Feb. 24, in Ponca.

Tipoff against the 22-1 Indians will be at 7 p.m., at the Ponca Public Schools gymnasium, located at 505 3rd Street.

The winner of the C2-5 district will advance to the 2023 Nebraska School Activities Association Girls' State Basketball Championship in Lincoln.

The winner will open play Thursday, March 2, at the Devaney Sports Center. The tournament continues through Saturday, March 4.

Bobcat skipper Greg Appleby called Ponca a very good team.

"They are very well-coached, have good size and length across their lineup and they have experience as they play mainly eight seniors," he said.

Bob Hayes serves as Ponca's head coach.

The Indians are led by senior center Sam Ehlers who averages 14.3 points and .9 blocks per game.

Gracen Evans, who starts at forward, leads Ponca in free-throw shooting, connecting 48% of the time at the line. She also leads in rebounding, with 6.4 per game and averages 2.8 steals per contest.

The Indians lone loss came Jan. 5, when they fell to Vermillion, 47-36, in a non-district contest. Hartington Cedar Catholic pushed the Indians to overtime and Ponca escaped with a 45-40 win.

Summerland junior Adyson Mlnarik leads the Bobcats in scoring, averaging 20.3 points per contest. She averages 44% of shots from the charity stripe.

Hadley Cheatum averages 6.3 rebounds per game.

"We look forward to the challenge and are preparing hard this week on our game plan and the opportunity to play to get to the state tournament," Appleby said.