By Mike Simmons, staff writer

GLENVILLE &8212; The small rural communities of Glenville and Northwood, Iowa sit just nine miles apart, but despite that short distance these two schools had never met on the basketball court until Thursday night when they squared off in a girl-boy doubleheader.

Northwood-Kensett took both games from Glenville-Emmons with the N-K girls winning a close one 42-35 while the Viking boys poured it on in a 70-36 rout over the Wolverine boys&8217; squad.

In the girls game, both teams started slow as the score was still stuck at zero after almost six minutes of play.

The Wolverines got on the board first when Kalli VanRyswyk hit a turnaround jumper for a 2-0 lead, but the futility on the offensive side continued for both teams in the early going.

G-E led just 10-3 with

4:10 remaining in the first half but then something seemed to happen to the Vikings as they started playing the kind of ball they are capable of. N-K fought its way back to lead 16-12 before falling behind 18-16 at the break.

At times, at the beginning of the second half, the game turned into a battle between the Vikings&8217; Kate Hartman and G-E&8217;s Jordyn VanRyswyk who combined to score the first 13 points of the half.

While both teams fought for an advantage &8212; with neither being able to break away from the other &8212; the game may have been decided with 9:20 remaining when G-E picked up a foul that would send N-K to the line for the remainder of the game.

Down the stretch, the Vikings connected on those free ones and went home with a win.

&8220;They really did a nice job of slowing the tempo down in those first few minutes,&8221; said Vikings head coach Daryl Love. &8220;We like to push the ball up the floor, but we were trying to adjust to them instead of making them adjust to us. When we started pushing the ball up the floor things started to go our way. It was still ugly, but we&8217;ll take a win anytime.&8221;

Jordyn VanRyswyk led the Wolverines with 15 points while Kate Hartman poured in a game-high 16 all in the second half of play.

In the boys&8217; game, the Vikings put on a fullcourt press that held the Wolverines scoreless for the first eight minutes as N-K ran out to a 19-0 advantage. The Vikings had six players score in the half and went to the locker room leading 37-13.

Although G-E was able to step it up in the second the N-K pressure continued to be too much for the young Wolverines to handle as they fell behind 62-25 with eight minutes left in the game.

From that point on it was time for the subs to come in and mop things up for both squads as the Vikings pushed their advantage to 34 at the buzzer.

Jordan Cotter, Jesse Davidson, and Sam Arnold of N-K all scored in double figures with Cotter hitting a game-high 17. The Wolverines had two players in double figures with Jon Mittag and Jake Kirsch hitting for 11 and 10 points, respectively.

&8220;I just want to say that I think this matchup has been a long time coming for the fans,&8221; said Wolverine head coach Dan Fredrickson. &8220;This could be such a good rivalry. They are still a good team, they came in with a little swagger and took advantage of everything we gave them.&8221;

&8220;We have struggled a bit this year, at least with getting wins, said Vikings head coach Marty Cotter. &8220;We really didn&8217;t know what to expect coming in here but the guys played well and we scored more points tonight than we have all year.&8221;

Girls

Northwood-Kensett 42, Glenville-Emmons 35

NK – Kate Hartman 16, Courtney Meyer 6, Brook Claussen 4, Lauren Hartman 7, Marissa Nitcher 2, Kjirsti Davidson 8

GE – Jordyn VanRyswyk 15, Karissa Olson 6, Kailey Davis 5, Danielle Cooper 5, Kalli VanRyswyk 2, Molly Kral 2

Boys

Northwood-Kensett 70, Glenville-Emmons 36

NK – Jordan Cotter 17, Jayson Olson 4, Jesse Davidson 10, Jake Weisert 4, Christian Burnes 2, Jacob Gordon 6, Sam Arnold 13, Trent Midtgaard 6, Tyson Werner 8

GE – Garret Schumaker 4, Michael Thofson 2, Jon Mittag 11, Jake Kirsch 10, Ryan Dempewolf 3, Derek Sanderson 4, Michael Adams 2