FIELD TWP- A gutsy 11-point rally put the North Woods girls basketball team ahead of visiting Eveleth-Gilbert last Thursday, but a devastating eight-minute drought from the field to start the second half sealed their fate in a 56-39 loss.
Fans could be forgiven if they arrived at the gym wondering which Grizzlies team would show up, the confident, poised squad that won its opener over Nashwauk-Keewatin 47-41, or the one that struggled in a 50-24 loss to International Falls.
As it turned out, they saw both.
The Grizzlies took an early lead on three-balls by Madi Dantes and Brianna Whiteman, but a trey by the Golden Bears’ Morgan Marks ignited a 15-4 Eveleth-Gilbert run that put the visitors ahead 23-13 with just over five minutes left in the half.
But when Shyla Adams scored a bucket with 4:40 remaining, a Grizzlies comeback was on. They held the Golden Bears scoreless as Helen Koch and Dantes hit field goals and Whiteman nailed a trey, and a score by Hannah Kinsey with time running out put North Woods back on top 24-23 going into intermission. “That was super exciting,” North Woods Head Coach Liz Cheney said. “We made some defensive adjustments pretty quick, and then five different girls came in and scored. Once they get themselves going they can hold onto that energy and do really well.”
But when the teams came back onto the court, the Grizzlies couldn’t find the basket. They didn’t score until Whiteman hit a free throw at the 11:06 mark, and it took another minute and a half before Kinsey made the team’s first field goal of the half. Leading 37-27, the Golden Bears squashed any notion of another North Woods comeback by building their lead to as many as 23 points in coasting to the 56-39 win.
Whiteman and Dantes shared scoring honors for the Grizzlies with nine points each. Kinsey dropped in eight.
Missed opportunities in the team’s opening possessions of the second half sapped the momentum the Grizzlies built in the first, Cheney said.
“They all get frustrated missing those key baskets that we’ve been making in practice over and over and over again,” she said. “It all goes very quickly the other way for them. Someone misses a key shot, and then you can see it, just boom, it brings them down.”
The game was Cheney’s first as the team’s permanent new head coach. An assistant to former coach Robbie Goggleye since 2012, Cheney stepped into the role as an interim when Goggleye resigned after taking a new job as executive director of the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa. The job wasn’t hers for good until a formal interview two games into the season.
Adding in a group of players skewed heavily toward freshmen and sophomores, North Woods is a team with question marks, but promise, particularly as they learn to level out the emotional highs and lows, Cheney said.
“The girls have so much potential, it’s going to be really fun to be with them to see them grow,” Cheney said. “Helen Koch and Hannah Kinsey are the only two who were starters on varsity last year. It takes a while to build a foundation, even though I’ve been around for a while. It’s still it’s a new foundation. And I’m just really excited to see the potential to be gunners and runners and good shooters all around.”
The Grizzlies were scheduled to play at Deer River on Thursday, and will be on the road again on Monday at Carlton.