The Luverne boys and girls basketball teams made it to the championship rounds of Goshen High School’s three-day Christmas tournament. In a tournament that included nearly a dozen schools, Luverne is still standing.

“The thing I’m most impressed by is we’ve had five of our players go down with injuries, and, game after game, we’ve had player after player step up,” said Luverne Lady Tigers head coach Andre Parks.

One of the injured players was captain and point guard Alexus Redmon.

The Lady Tigers defeated G.W. Long Thursday night, 32-24. The game was won at the free throw line, with 15 of the team’s points coming one shot at a time. Nyjah Thomas was the leading scorer with 10 points, half of them free throws. Marli Alford helped pave the way to a win with seven points, five of them free throws.

“I’m really proud of Marli and Nyjah,” Parks said. “They really stepped up in the absence of Alexus and came through for us.”

The Lady Tigers defeated Ariton Friday night, 37-30. Thomas and Alford led scoring, Alford with 10 points and Thomas with 12 points.

The team will face Goshen Saturday, Dec. 13, at 4:30 p.m. They defeated Goshen last Tuesday, but Parks said they could have done better.

“They really didn’t execute well and had a lot of unforced errors,” he said. “We still haven’t put together a complete game, but we’ve won the last five out of six games and I feel like we’re ready to play.”

The boys took a different road to the finals, defeating G.W. Long, 73-37, Thursday and Pike County, 61-51, Friday evening. Leading scorer was Donta’ Hall with 31 points. Kenterious Womack added 15 points and Uriah Brown put up 11.

In Friday’s game, Hall led the Tigers with 29 points, 21 rebounds and 13 blocks.

Womack had 13 points and Trevon Bodiford added seven points to the scoreboard. He also had eight rebounds. The boys will play Saturday at 6 p.m.