ELY- The North Woods girls were riding high at Ely last Thursday when senior River Cheney drained a halftime-buzzer-beating trey for a one-point lead at the intermission, 29-28. But Wolves’ senior Grace LaTourell squashed any chance of a Grizzlies upset with a monster 29-point barrage in the second half to leave the Grizzlies reeling on the short end of a 78-48 score.
The Grizzlies started out on the right foot with a steal by Helen Koch, who put the Grizzlies ahead 2-0. Hannah Penke quickly responded with Ely’s first trey of the night, and the battle was joined.
A pair of deuces by Penke and a basket by Clare Thomas put Ely up 9-3 before the Grizzlies got their first score from the floor on a drive down the lane by Tatum Barto. From there on, every time Ely tried to put some distance between them, the Grizzlies found a way to hang close. When a LaTourell layup gave Ely a 24-18 lead, Cheney responded with a pair of buckets down low. And with the Wolves up 28-22 with halftime approaching, the Grizzlies came up with a 7-0 run on a free throw by Barto, a triple by Koch, and Cheney’s long range bomb to stun the Wolves and the Ely home crowd by taking the lead at the break.
Those who expected a second-half fight to the finish instead got a full display of how potent Ely’s offense can be when LaTourell is in the zone. LaTourell canned a 10-foot jumper to start the tsunami, and kept right on rolling from there as the Wolves went on an 11-2 run, forcing North Woods Head Coach Liz Cheney to take a timeout with her team trailing 39-31. The Grizzlies couldn’t find their shooting touch and the Wolves made them pay for the miscues, with the lead ballooning to 60-40. LaTourell drained a pair of three balls, and the only question remaining at that point was how big the Wolves’ final edge would be. Penke, Visser, and LaTourell all contributed to the stretch run that gave Ely the 78-48 win.
LaTourell led all scorers with 41 points, while Penke also turned in a strong performance with 24 points. Cheney was the top scorer for North Woods with 22, followed by Koch with 11.
Ely Head Coach Max Gantt said there was no magic adjustment at halftime other than one.
“What we said was work harder,” Gantt said. “We wanted to try to move the ball more, we wanted to work harder on defense, we wanted to be more physical. We picked up more fouls, but who cares?”
Gantt contrasted LaTourell’s explosive game against the 37 points she had against Chisholm on Feb. 12.
“When we went to Chisholm, she took a lot of their players one-on-one for buckets. Tonight, it was a team effort. It was because others were touching the ball – Hannah’s touching the ball, Clare’s touching the ball, Sarah Visser is pushing the pace. She had 41 because she’s a phenomenal scorer, but she doesn’t get that if we don’t play as a team.”
Gantt said the Wolves still have goals to accomplish by the end of the season.
“We have 18 wins, which is awesome. If you’d have told me at the beginning of the year we’d be right where we’re at with hopefully a two seed, we would’ve taken that all day. We want to play better defense, we need to keep our turnovers down and keep the ball moving, but we feel good right now.”
Cheney had high praise for LaTourell after the game.
“How do you stop Grace LaTourell when she’s on fire? We could have all been on her but you can’t take that away from her,” Cheney said. “She was what made the big difference.”
But Cheney was equally pleased with the Grizzlies’ first half performance.
“We showed we can do it. We played amazing defense, we were patient on our offense. We didn’t get shaken up when they put the press on. I was really impressed with what we did, and I know we can play like that,” Cheney said.
Both teams were scheduled to finish the regular season on the road this week, with North Woods’ finale on Tuesday at Littefork-Big Falls and Ely playing at Cherry on Tuesday and South Ridge on Friday. Seedings, opponents, and game times for the 7A sectional tournament will be announced over the weekend.