Lampe leads Lady Hawks past New London

DONNELLSON — Getting off to a good start is always important for Central Lee junior Nora Lampe.
She couldn’t have had a better start than the one she had in Tuesday’s 58-25 win over New London.
Lampe scored the Hawks’ first 14 points on the way to a 23-point game as Central Lee (3-1 overall, 3-1 SEISC South Division) dominated the Tigers (0-5, 0-4).
Lampe hit four 3-pointers in the first five minutes of the game, taking advantage of a New London defense that tried to keep the ball out of the hands of Central Lee forward Kenna Sandoval.
“It's big,” Lampe said of how she opened the game. “For me, that gets me on a streak. I'm a very streaky shooter, so if I make one, it feels like I'm on fire. So the more I shoot and the more they go in, the more confidence I get.”
“For her as a player, getting going like that is the best thing we can ask for,” Central Lee coach Taylor Hickey said. “When she's hot, she's hot, and we want to get her the ball.”
Lampe came into the game with 11 3-pointers this season.
“She's been shooting great lately,” Hickey said. “In practice last night, the ball was going in. She was feeling confident. She's been staying after practice and working with me, and I know a couple times on the weekends, she’s also getting more shots up. We've been talking to the girls that to be at that next level, you have to do things like that. On the offensive end, you have to put that extra time in, and she's been doing that, and I think it's been paying off.”
“In warmups, I really lock in,” Lampe said. “I don’t think about anything else. I focused on my shot, and it felt good tonight.”

The Tigers packed the lane to try to take away Sandoval, the Hawks’ leading scorer at 23.7 points per game. Sandoval finished with 15 points, but consistently faced two or three defenders every time the Hawks could get her the ball.
That gave space to Lampe.
“That really helps me,” she said, smiling. “Kenna really helps to bring the attention on herself, since she's a killer player. So they focus on her, and it leaves me open. Next game, if they focus on me, we’ll have her open.”
“Kenna has been an animal in there,” Hickey said. “In the preseason we talked about focusing on getting the ball inside, because that opens up the outside game. The girls are picking up on that.”
Central Lee led by as much as 36 points in the second half.
Paige Shull-Collins led New London with 12 points.
Taylor Jones added seven for the Hawks, who play Monroe City (Mo.) in the Rumble On The River event at John Wood Community College in Quincy, Ill. Thursday.
“I love that we’re playing them,” Lampe said. “It's new competition, new basketball. Missouri basketball is way more aggressive than Iowa, so it's definitely fun getting into more aggressive games and seeing different things that we haven't seen yet.”
“Missouri and Illinois teams usually are a little more physical than what we’re used to,” Hickey said. “ We're excited for that. We're excited for that competition. We've been talking about it all week. We kind of take it game by game, but we're excited to travel and play in that John Wood atmosphere and see a different team that we don't normally see during conference play.”