Lady Toppers squeeze victory passed rival Bulldogs

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By Missy Klatt
Sports Correspondent

GLENWOOD CITY — When the two local rivals come together on the basketball court it always makes for a good game.

And last Tuesday’s game that the Glenwood City Lady Hilltoppers hosted against the neighboring Boyceville Lady Bulldogs was no exception.

In a tough and tight competition throughout, it was Glenwood City who came out on top with the win, 39-36, to give the Lady Toppers (3-3) their first Dunn-St. Croix win. Meanwhile, the Bulldogs, who are 1-4 overall, are still searching for their first league victory.

The game got off to a slow start with neither team putting up any points on the scoreboard for the first three minutes. Finally, Maddie Oehlke stole the ball for the Hilltoppers which resulted in two points when Makiah Schutz hit for two under the basket.

About two minutes later, the Bulldogs got their first points of the game when Tyra Kostman dropped in two points off an inbound play. The Toppers immediately followed with two more from Schutz off a rebound.

A short time later, Delanie Fayerweather hit a short jumper for the Toppers which Emma Ouellette countered with a long three pointer from the top of the arc for the Bulldogs.

Two more buckets for the Hilltoppers from Fayerweather and Oehlke gave the Toppers a 10-5 lead. Then with just under ten minutes left in the half Kostman again sank a bucket off an inbound pass. This was followed by Oehlke sinking the front half of a shooting foul. The Toppers now had an 11-7 lead.

As play continued both teams struggled to sink their shots with many missed shots at both ends of the court. The Hilltoppers in particular had a hard time getting anything thing to sink outside of the box.

The Bulldogs finally got things going again when Mya Lagerstrom hit two three-pointers in a row which gave Boyceville a 13-11 lead.

A couple of minutes later, with 4:22 on the clock, Fayerweather put the Toppers back on top with a three-pointer of her own making the score Toppers 14, Bulldogs 13. This remained the score till the end of the half as both teams continued to miss shots.

It was the Bulldogs who struck first in the second half when Ana Evenson hit both shots from the free throw line.

The Topper’s Yasmin Leandro-Mendez followed this up with three from outside the arc. Mendez found her sweet spot and added two more three pointers over the course of five minutes.

Now with the Hilltoppers leading 23-17, Kady Grambow grabbed a rebound and went up for two for the Lady Dawgs. However, Glenwood City countered with five unanswered points to take their biggest lead of the game at nine points, 28-19.

The Bulldogs,however, weren’t out of it yet and continued to fight their way back.

With just under three minutes left to play, most of the scoring was taking place at the free throw line. However, after a failed bonus shot from the Toppers’ Oehlke, the Bulldogs’ Kady Grambow sank a three pointer to pull to her team within five points of the Toppers at 27-32.

Mendez then hit both ends of a one-and-one for the Hilltoppers before Boyceville’s Megan Hintzman hit for two and was fouled in the process. She then sank her free throw to narrow the Toppers’ lead to four points.

With just over two minutes remaining on the clock,  Bella Rassbach sank the first half of her one-and-one to bring the Topper lead back to five at 35-30.

Ouellette then went three for four at the free throw line for the Lady Dawgs to knock the Toppers lead down to just two points. The Lady Tops countered with three consecutive trips to the line where they went four-for-six to take a 39-33 lead.

With under 20 seconds left, Kostman hit a three pointer for the Bulldogs which ended up being the last basket of the game as she failed to sink her free throws with 1.5 seconds left in the game to give the Toppers a 39-36 win over the rival Bulldogs.

For the Hilltoppers, Yasmin Leandro-Mendez led the scoring with 14 points followed by Delanie Fayerweather with ten. Tyra Kostman was the leading scorer for the Bulldogs with nine points. Kady Grambow was right behind her with eight.

“I knew it was going to be a tough game coming in here,” commented Toppers’ head coach Dean Fayerweather after the game.

He credited the Bulldogs for having a tight defense that caused the Topper offense to get off to a slow start.

When the Bulldogs started to come back after the Hilltoppers’ nine point lead, Fayerweather was proud of his girls stating, “Our girls fought hard and didn’t quit.” Which he said was nice to see. Fayerweather concluded by saying. “A win’s a win.”

For Bulldogs’ head coach Jolene Bird, the cold weather outside seemed to creep into the gym as she said her team was cold on offense.

“Again shooting woes from the arc as well as the free throw line plagued us, noted Bird. “We played great defense for the majority of the game but we just need to find a way to be more consistent on the offensive end.”

Glenwood City (39)

FG-FT-F-TP: Rassbach 0-2-3-2, Oehlke 2-3-2-7, Ullom 0-0-0-0, Thompson 0-0-2-0, Leandro-Mendez 3-5-0-14, Strong 0-0-0-0, Fayerweather 4-0-2-10, Schutz 3-0-4-6. Total 12-10-13-39.

Boyceville (36)

FG-FT-F-TP: Olson 0-0-0-0, Ouellette 1-3-1-6, Lagerstrom 2-0-2-6, Hillman 0-0-3-0, Hintzman 2-1-3-5 , Boesl 0-0-0-0, Grambow 3-0-4-8, Kostman 4-0-2-9, Evenson 0-2-2-2. Total 12-6-17-36.

Glenwood City……………………14  25 — 39

Boyceville…………………………..13  23 — 36

3-point goals: Glenwood City: Leandro-Mendez 3, Fayerweather 2. Boyceville: Ouellette, Lagerstrom 2, Grambow 2, Kostman.