Rayce Worley helps Langdon-Edmore-Munich hold off Nelson County in region quarterfinals
Mar. 4—DEVILS LAKE — The Langdon-Edmore-Munich boys basketball team was out of sorts late in the fourth quarter Monday amid a scoring drought of three minutes against Nelson County.
Senior Rayce Worley snapped the Cardinals out of the funk.
Worley's transition basket with 30 seconds left gave the Cardinals enough cushion in a 54-48 win over Nelson County in the North Dakota Division B Region 2 quarterfinals.
"He's been our leader the past couple of seasons, and it helps to have almost another coach out there," Langdon-E-M coach Tanner Groth said.
Worley, a 6-foot-4 forward, scored 21 points overall as the Cardinals move on to play No. 1 North Star in Tuesday's semifinals.
Langdon-E-M has lost twice to the Bearcats this season. North Star beat the Cardinals by 17 in the first meeting and by seven in the rematch in the district tournament.
"We did pretty well against them this last time, so hopefully we can have that to our advantage," Worley said.
The Cardinals had to scrap against the Chargers to line up a meeting with North Star.
Cardinals eighth-grader Eastyn Schaefer, who finished with 13 points, hit a hanging jumper in the lane to give L-E-M a 50-43 lead with 3:35 to play.
That's when the Cardinals went more than three mintues without a basket.
Meanwhile, Nelson County had the Cardinals reeling. Brody Rainsberry hit a 3-pointer from the corner after a dizzying sequence to cut the L-E-M lead to 50-48 with 43.6 seconds to play.
After struggling late in the fourth to break the Nelson County press, Worley helped the Cardinals escape the pressure. He tipped a loose ball to himself and finished to give Langdon a 52-48 advantage with 30 seconds to play.
Nelson County was led by Ross Thompson, who finished with 12 points.
Halftime: LEM 29, NC 22
Nelson County — Brody Rainsberry 10, Zach Gibson 4, Axel Anderson 2, Jaxon Baumgarn 9, Rider Schmidt 7, Caden Joramo 4, Ross Thompson 12
Langdon-Edmore-Munich — Jayden Lee 1, Nickolas Kingzett 2, Tanner McDonald 8, Cody Amble 5, Levi Swanson 4, Rayce Worley 21, Eastyn Schaefer 13
