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Serving Northern St. Louis County, Minnesota

Grizzlies girls lose a pair

David Colburn
Posted 1/17/25

SOUTH RIDGE- The North Woods girls couldn’t have played two more wildly different games than last week’s home contest against state-ranked Mt. Iron-Buhl and Tuesday’s road game …

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Grizzlies girls lose a pair

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SOUTH RIDGE- The North Woods girls couldn’t have played two more wildly different games than last week’s home contest against state-ranked Mt. Iron-Buhl and Tuesday’s road game against South Ridge, although both resulted in losses.
The rebuilding Grizzlies may have played one of their best all-around games of the season against the Panthers on Tuesday, controlling the tempo and leading throughout most of the game until a spirited South Ridge rally in the closing minutes ended with a last second game-winner, 52-50.
Both teams had trouble shooting in the game’s opening minutes, but the Grizzlies got off the skids when Brynn Chosa picked up a loose ball and drove the length of the court for North Woods’ first score. Isabelle Koch followed up with a long trey, and Tatum Barto stole the ball on the press and scored to put the Grizzlies up 7-0. North Woods took a 19-9 lead on another Koch triple, and the Grizzlies held onto that ten-point lead going into the half at 28-18.
A mid-range jumper by Nevada Gauthier and a deuce by Chosa put the Grizzlies up by 12 at 33-21, and North Woods led 44-33 with just over seven minutes remaining. From there, the Panthers slowly but surely cut into the Grizzlies lead, narrowing the gap to 48-46 with 2:42 left. South Ridge used a pair of free throws to knot the score at 48-48, then scored with 30 seconds left to take a 50-48 lead. North Woods worked the ball down low to Sierra Schuster for a bucket that tied it again, but South Ridge scored in the final seconds to hand the Grizzlies the heartbreaking loss.
Barto led the Grizzlies in scoring with 14 points, Chosa had 11, and Koch connected on three triples for nine.
Mt. Iron/Buhl
When the state-ranked MIB Rangers walked onto the floor at North Woods last Thursday, the only real question to be answered was how big their winning margin would be. The Grizzlies simply didn’t have the personnel to match up against the taller, more athletic Rangers, and that showed in a devasting way in the first half as North Woods went scoreless from the field and trailed 61-2 at the break. Things eventually got a little bit better for the Grizzlies in the second half, but when Emarie Gibson finally scored the Grizzlies’ first field goal at the 9:46 mark,the Rangers were up 84-4. Having a bit more success against the Rangers’ bench players, North Woods tallied eight more points the rest of the way as MIB cruised to a 98-12 win.
The Grizzlies were scheduled for a Saturday game at Nashwauk-Keewatin before returning home to face Moose Lake-Willow River on Tuesday.