Elk Mound girls dethrone Colfax for D-SC Conference championship

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by Marlys Kruger

Sports Correspondent

COLFAX — When the Elk Mound girls made the 12 mile trek over to Colfax February 7, it was safe to say they all knew what was on the line when they started the game against  the reigning Dunn-St. Croix Conference champions.

The Mounders are having a phenomenal season with an overall 19-1 record and were 11-0 in conference competition. The Viking girls were 14-5 overall and 9-2 in conference play with the losses coming against Elk Mound and Durand. Both teams had two conference games remaining which meant with a Mounder win, they would wrap up the conference title. A Viking win would give them an outside chance of making it five titles in a row.

But for the Vikings, all good things must end, as the Mounders made timely shots and used solid defense to earn a 59-56 win, making them the conference champs for the first time since 2017.

Just over a month ago, the Mounders beat the Vikings by 20 points, and this game started out like it might be another lopsided game. Three different Elk Mound players drained a triple starting with Ellie Schiszik, followed by Brooke Emery and Lydia Levra, while the Vikings had just one McKenna Shipman bucket for a 9-2 Elk Mound lead. Aynsley Olson dropped in a free throw and Shipman hit from the paint to bring the score closer before Stella Rhude scored near the hoop for the Mounders. 

After missing two shots, the Vikings chased down both rebounds and Olson finally canned a deuce, and when Autumn Niggemann drained a triple her teammate Jordyn Bowe followed suit with her own for a 13-11 Colfax advantage.

Niggemann beat the Mounder press for a layup but Chloe Dummer scored two quick buckets for Elk Mound, and just seconds later, Bowe drilled another triple to keep Colfax ahead 18-15. Carly Mohr dropped in two free tosses and Allie Roder added another for Elk Mound to knot the score at 18-18 but Shipman, the Vikings leading scorer, connected from three-point land to pull ahead again. 

In the fast paced contest, the Mounders knotted it again with a Tori Blaskowski free throw and a close range bucket from Rhude. Molly Heidorn, the usual starting point guard for Colfax, had just returned after missing several games with an ankle injury, dropped in a free toss and Meadow Keltner hit from just outside the paint to make it 24-21 for Colfax.

And just like two boxers trading punches, Schiszik drilled her second trey of the half to knot it again.

Shipman and Rhude exchanged buckets and a Levra free toss and Blaskowski’s drive to the hoop put the Mounders ahead 29-26. Both teams were in the bonus at around the three minute mark but it didn’t make a lot of difference in scoring. Blaskowski went on a roll with six points, scoring from the foul line, in the lane and beyond the arc while Jeanette Hydukovich and Olson hit a deuce each, putting the halftime score at 35-30 for the Mounders.

“We knew this was going to be a different type of game than the first time we played,” Elk Mound coach Jordan Kongshaug said. “I told our players Colfax is a much better team than they showed and they have a lot of talent and always have an aggressive defense. We just had to play our own game and stay calm when they made a run,” he added.

Elk Mound continued to pull ahead early in the second half and had an eight-point lead with help from Blaskowski’s four points and another Emery triple. Kaysen Goodell drove the lane for a Viking deuce and added the free throw with it to cut the Mounder lead to 42-37. But it was back to eight points at 49-41 before the Vikings fought back with a Hydukovich shot in the paint and a bucket by Goodell at the top of the key.

The Mounders had a little scoring drought when they failed to score on three possessions and Colfax took advantage when Olson knocked down a pair of free throws to cut the deficit to 49-48. 

But just like coach Kongshaug advised, they didn’t panic as Roder came through and hit her first and only deuce of the game. Seconds later, Rhude stole the ball near the Colfax basket and scored on a layup to put them up 53-48, and the boxing match continued as Hydukovich hit a long jumper and Heidorn came up with a steal and zipped a pass to Shipman for a layup, cutting the Mounder lead to a single point again.

Colfax couldn’t get over the hump to get ahead as the Mounders had an answer for every Viking score.

With just under four minutes to go, the Mounders committed their 10th team foul while the Vikings had just four which should have been in the Vikings favor. But as it turned out, Olson and Goodell were the only Vikings to go to the charity stripe and both made one of two shots to make it 57-56 for Elk Mound. 

The Mounders tried to stall, hoping to run the clock down but the Vikings forced them into a couple of turnovers. The Vikings didn’t take advantage however, as they missed on a three-point attempt and turned the ball over themselves, then had to commit three quick fouls in hopes of getting the ball back. But the Mounders had the right person at the charity stripe with Blaskowski as she knocked down a pair of free tosses for a three-point lead with 25 seconds to go.

The Mounder defense forced another Viking turnover and this time Blaskowski missed the front end of the one-and-one, keeping the door open for Colfax to tie it up with six seconds left. Somehow Olson ended up with the ball on the Viking side of the court but a trio of Mounders surrounded her and didn’t allow her to get any type of shot off as the buzzer sounded.

“The girls fought hard,” Colfax coach Courtney Sarauer said. “We had big games from Aynsley Olson, McKenna Shipman and Jeanette Hydukovich. Molly Heidorn played super well for her first game back and Kaysen Goodell brought a lot to the game with her defense,” she added.

Both teams spread the scoring out as they each had eight players score points for their respective teams. Blaskowski, who holds an 11-point scoring average per game, led the Mounders with 19 points which included 8-of-11 free throws, while Rhude and Emery added eight each. Elk Mound connected for six triples and were 13-for-19 at the foul line.

Shipman led the Vikings with 13 points, Olson and Hydukovich both scored 10. Colfax went 11-for-20 at the charity stripe and knocked down five triples.