Lady Eagles soar to win in season opener

The Northland Pines girls basketball team flew to a season-opening 56-27 convincing road win at Mercer last Thursday.
Pines head coach Jaclyn Halsey picked up her first win of the 2024-25 season as the new varsity coach for the girls program.
After some early jitters, the Eagles maintained control and picked up the victory. Halsey hopes the team will keep their foot on the gas when they get control of a game like they did in this one.
“The team started off with some season-opener jitters, but really started to gather themselves eight minutes into the game,” she said. “That’s to be expected. Once we got into the groove, the foot was on the gas and that will be our mentality this whole season.”
Three Eagles finished the night scoring in double figures.

Senior Vienna Klemmet opened the year strong with 22 points to lead Northland Pines. Fellow teammate Ellie Smith ended with 10 points, while Natalie Kohn came off the bench with 12 points.
Smith also stuffed the stat sheet with rebounds, steals and a few assists.
After the slow start, Northland Pines went into halftime with a six-point lead, 20-14, as the team looked ahead to the second half.
Halsey used previous seasons to create goals for the team, which included second-half production.
“I told the girls our team goal was to allow 11 in the second half. They responded well and only gave up 13 points the entire second half,” explained Halsey. “The next goal was, after watching years of Pines girls basketball, we struggled to score more in the second half than we did in the first. They needed 20-plus points to do that. They came out and put up 36.”
The Eagles moved the ball around more in the second half, which led to the smooth offensive production.
With one game under its belt, Northland Pines moved ahead to a cross-town rivalry game at Three Lakes Tuesday of this week before playing its first home game Tuesday, Dec. 3, against Hurley. The game is set for 7:15 p.m.