FIELD TWP- The North Woods girls basketball team fumbled away a chance for a home win last Thursday in a 52-38 loss to Two Harbors.
Both teams have struggled against tough competition this season, but the contest shaped up as one between evenly matched teams, and that’s how it played out for the most part.
Tatum Barto put the Grizzlies on the board first when she was fouled on an acrobatic baseline shot for a deuce and converted the free throw for a 3-0 lead. Shots by Sierra Schuster and Zoey Burckhardt kept North Woods ahead, and a driving score by Barto gave the Grizzlies their biggest edge of the night at 9-5. After falling behind in the slugfest, Corra Brodeen put North Woods back ahead at 17-16 with just under seven minutes left in the half.
But then, the wheels started falling off. Over the next five minutes the Grizzlies committed eight turnovers and scored just one point on a Schuster free throw as the Agates took a 28-18 lead. The Grizzlies cut into that by four in the final minute of the half, but the Agates got those points back in the final 17 seconds before the half to take a 32-22 lead into the locker room.
Needing a strong start to the second half to chip away at the lead, the Grizzlies instead saw themselves falling farther behind. North Woods got only a deuce by Isabelle Koch and a trey by Nevada Gauthier in the first six minutes of the period as the Agates went up by 15, 42-27. As it was at the outset, the teams battled evenly the rest of the way as the Grizzlies were unable to mount a comeback and lost 52-38.
The Grizzlies turned the ball over 34 times, and Grizzlies Head Coach Liz Cheney was quick to say after the game that this was an area of concern.
“We just talked about this – passing and court awareness are the two biggest things that we need to be working on right now,” Cheney said. “We’re missing some chemistry, too, and that’s a big thing. That will come the more we play.”
Barto was the only Grizzlies’ player in double-figures with 15, which included going five-for-five at the free throw line.
The Grizzlies had one game on the schedule heading into the holiday break, a Friday home context against Cook County. Game time is at 4:45 p.m.