Grafton girls stay undefeated
The Spoilers girls’ basketball team continued on their hot streak against a determined East Grand Forks Green Wave team Monday in Grafton.
The Green Wave, under new head coach Emily Bydal, saw a tough Grafton Spoiler team jump out to a 12-5 lead at the end of one quarter, en route to a 54-42 Spoiler win.
After the teams traded turnovers in the first quarter, Cassie Thompson finally broke the scoring drought just over a minute into the game, scoring two of her game high 24 points.
The Spoilers took a commanding 30-19 lead at halftime, and extended that lead at the end of three quarters, leading 46-24 going into the final quarter.
Though the Spoilers had a big lead at times, head coach Laurie Sieben was disappointed in the offensive effort put on by the Spoilers.
“It probably wasn’t our best offensive performance tonight,” Sieben said.
The Green Wave came out as a physical team, and the Spoilers had to adjust at times to that physicality.
“They got more of the 50/50 balls than we did,” she said. “You have to give them (EGF) credit, to come out and play with the level of intensity that they did.”
Kelsey Schlenk paced the Green Wave with 21 points. Twelve of Schlenk’s points came on three pointers.
“Defensively, we would like to keep them under the 20 point mark,” Sieben said. “We sent them to the line too many times.”
The third quarter was a physical, defensive battle between the two squads.
Jess Burns, who had played well for the Spoilers, went down midway through the third quarter diving for a loose ball. She didn’t return, and Sieben said that she should be back soon, as the only injury sustained was a bruise to her leg.
“Jess is tough, she will bounce back,” Sieben said.
In addition to Thompson’s 24 points, Alison Burns also hit double figures with 10 points. Brooke Feltman added nine points for Grafton, followed by Megan Jiskra with four, Lexie Lee with three, Nicole Christinson and with two and Rachel Dryburgh and Kayla Dvorak with one point each.
The Spoilers will host Larimore Thursday at 6 p.m. Larimore received votes but didn’t make the top 10 in the latest poll, released Monday night. Grafton is ranked second, and received one first-place vote this week.