Langer reaches milestone against Osakis

When the Long Prairie-Grey Eagle Thunder girls hosted the Osakis Silverstreaks on Thursday night, all eyes were on junior forward Jenna Langer.

Entering the game, Langer was just 14 points shy of reaching the 1,000 point milestone.

Despite playing on varsity for many years now, Langer admitted to being a bit nervous Thursday night.

“Coming into the game, I was thinking 14 points couldn’t come fast enough,” she said. “I was really nervous but I knew what I had to do and had the support of the home crowd.”   

Midway through the second half, Langer drove from the top of the key and pulled up and hit a jump shot in front of two defenders to become the first Thunder girl to reach the milestone since Diane Blommel in 2007.

After hitting the shot, the crowd went wild and the game stopped as Langer took time to hug teammates, coaches, and her family.

Langer recalled what was going through her mind after scoring her 1,000th point.

“I was thinking, oh my gosh I just hit 1,000 points and couldn’t believe it,” she said. “It is something I’ve been working towards for so long and it’s great to have this type of accomplishment.”

Her head coach, Steve Christians, was very happy she reached the milestone.

“Jenna is a great kid, a great person, and she works hard in practice and in the offseason,” Christians said. “She deserves her accolades and worked to get where she is now.”

LPGE narrows gap between Osakis in conference standings

Langer’s night into the record books overshadowed a 43-30 Thunder victory against an Osakis team that only had one Prairie Conference loss entering the night.

The last time the two teams met in December, the Silverstreaks were able to cruise to a 53-39 win.

This time, the Thunder used just five girls and a very tough zone defense to narrow the gap behind the Silverstreaks in the conference standings.

Langer played calm, cool and unselfish to start the game.

She scored eight of her team’s first 13 points and was 6/6 on free throws in that stretch.

Despite being so close to the milestone, Langer still used unselfish play which helped the Thunder maintain a good lead in the first half. 

On an inbounds play, she passed up a jump shot to get teammate Laura Geisenhof a layup under the basket on the give and go.

A few minutes later, Langer made a quick swing pass to Geisenhof  who hit a three-pointer to extend the lead to 22-11.

While many were patiently awaiting Langer’s milestone, the Thunder defense were not giving the Silverstreaks many opportunities to score.

This allowed the Thunder to take a solid 27-15 lead going into halftime.

Langer scored the first two points of the second half, putting her just two points away from her milestone.

Everyone in attendance had to wait as she wouldn’t score again until the 10:41 mark.

The tired five Thunder players gave up a few turnovers when Osakis switched to man to man defense and pressured them.

However, the key factor in the ball game ended up being the Thunder’s excellent job of boxing out.

The Silverstreaks were limited to just two offensive rebounds which eliminated any hope of second chance opportunities.

Langer was able to add onto the lead at the end with a nice pass to teammate Samantha Zastrow for a layup with two seconds left on the clock.

Langer finished the game with a team high 16 points, four assists, and four steals.

It was no doubt a much improved Thunder team from the last time they played Osakis.

“The way we played tonight is how we need to play all the time. Patient, handle the ball, and play defense,” Christians said. “Those five girls that played defense out there did a great job of limiting shots and holding them to one shot.”

Osakis may have been the favorite coming into the game, but Langer and the Thunder stole the show on the night.

“It felt so good, we lost to them the first time so we stepped up our defense and didn’t allow them in the game,” Langer said.

With the win, the Thunder improved to 8-4 in conference play and 10-8 overall.

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