For a good three minutes and 22 seconds, the issue was in doubt Tuesday. Mitchell’s Andee Grentz had hit one of two from the line early on. Kimball center Tori Reader bested her a moment later, sinking both charity shots.

The game turned shortly after, when Reader took a feed from Darbi Klinkhammer and drove toward the basket.

From then, leading 4-1 at the 4:38 mark in the first, Kimball began to pile it on, heading toward an eventual 44-29 feast on the road.

“We played better offense tonight,” observed head coach Ken Smith. “They paid so much attention to Tori things opened up a lot.”

Early in the second quarter, for example, Klinkhammer hit from three point range then Annie McCloud finished off a neat move, eluding two defenders to sink a jumper from about eight feet out. It was 16-3.

The teams entered halftime at 20-8 in favor of the Longhorns.

“We came out and got after it the way we always should have,” Klinkhammer explained.

Kimball spread the joy around. Only one player--McCloud--ended up in double digits on the night, yet three others were one point shy.

Shelby Vogel, who completed an impressive Klinkhammer to Jessica Hanks to Vogel break at the end of the third then combined with Klinkhammer on another break to start the final period, agreed with Smith’s assessment.

“It just seemed like the floor was more open than normal,” she reported.

The Longhorns are back in action on Friday hosting Pine Bluffs. The travel to Bridgeport on Saturday.

For the team, the relative romp over Mitchell justified all the hard fought recent matches.

“This was definitely better than Gordon,” Reader said. “We woke up a little bit.”