Photo by Jake McNeil New Ulm’s McKenna Hulk weaves through traffic for a layup during a Prep girls basketball game against the Marshall Tigers on Thursday in Marshall.
Written by Jake McNeil
sports@nujournal.com
MARSHALL — The New Ulm girls basketball team couldn’t overcome the absence of Brooklyn Lewis in a road matchup against top-ranked Marshall on Thursday night. The Tigers took an early lead and never looked back, defeating the Eagles 80-53 and ending New Ulm’s winning streak at five.
“She’s like a director on the court.” Ulm’s new manager Julie Rogers spoke about Lewis, but added that she felt Madi Bakker played the role well. “(Backer) did a great job of standing her ground tonight…and that’s not unusual for her. Last year, she had to cover 15 games in Brooklyn because she broke her hand. But I thought Maddie did a great job. We’re also sitting on the bench, so I can’t give the kids as much rest as I would like.”
Reece Drake scored a game-high 28 points for the first-place Marshall Tigers, 17 of which came in the first half. Besides her, four other Tigers scored in double figures before intermission.
“You always get a good look when the ball goes into the basket like that, and I thought that was the case as well.” “That’s what we did,” Marshall head coach Dan Westby said, adding that he believes the 51 points in the first half were a season high for the Tigers. “Having four kids score in double figures at halftime is pretty rare…Our kids are really fired up and ready to go, but New Ulm has some key players tonight. Since he wasn’t there, it will be a different team when we meet again.”
The player in question in New Ulm was Brooklyn Lewis. She has become one of the Eagles’ key players on offense, both in scoring and ball-handling ability.
The Tigers’ defense was solid from the start. Despite Marshall’s shots not falling early, the defense held New Ulm scoreless for the first three minutes, building a 10-0 lead.
Reece Drake scored six points in the Tigers’ early run, including one on a transition layup off a steal. She remained strong throughout the first half, scoring 17 points as Marshall built a 51-29 lead before intermission.
Morgan Hulk hit a 3-pointer and Leah Brustad hit a come-from-behind jumper to close the gap to five points and end New Ulm’s drought. Still, Talha Bigler hit a 3-pointer from about 8 feet and Paige Gillingham made a steal and then a layup to push Marshall’s lead back to double digits at 15-5.
Bigler was one of four Tigers to finish the first half with double-digit points. She, Avery Fahl and Avery Schneekloth each had 10 points heading into the locker room, while Hulk led New Ulm with nine points at halftime.
Drake finished the game shooting 9-of-13 from the field and 6-of-8 from beyond the basket. She also had a game-high nine assists with two turnovers, and Bigler had eight more assists with one turnover.
Late in those 10 games, Bigler had 14 points on 5-of-12 shooting with the 3S trio, while Fahr and Schneekloth each had 13 points on 5-of-6 shooting and 12 points on 6-of-9 shooting. was recorded.
Leading 19-10, Marshall made another deep 3-pointer from Bigler, Schnee Kloss made a Eurostep layup and Drake recovered the loose ball to push Marshall’s lead to 27-10. However, the Eagles were called timeout after 10 minutes. Half left. Still, Drake hit another three soon after to extend Marshall’s lead to 20 points.
New Ulm cut Marshall’s lead to 17 points when Drake’s layup put Marshall on the board. Fahl kept the momentum going with threes from each corner on back-to-back possessions, and Schneekloth made two long ones in the corners to push Marshall’s lead to 47-22.
“The best part about it all is that it’s been a tough week.” Westby talked about his team’s success in the first half, noting the Tigers got home late from Tuesday’s road win over Mankato West and his kids have final exams this week. “We had a lot of late nights studying and things like that, so it’s tough to be here again tonight against an important section team, but the kids responded really well.”
Schneekloth used some fancy footwork in the post to finish off Drake dump-ins on successive possessions, giving Marshall its largest lead of the first half, 51-24. Still, two steals by Brustad and Madeline Bakker in the final minutes of the game turned into a layup and free throw by Brustad, cutting Marshall’s lead to 22 points at halftime.
Huelke finished the game with 17 points on 5-of-9 shooting for New Ulm’s third straight win, while Brustad added nine more points on 4-of-5 shooting.
The Eagles couldn’t find a rhythm in the second half as Marshall continued to pull away. The Tigers led by as many as 32 points, but fell short of the 35 needed to trigger the running clock. Still, there were some positives for the team, as Rodgers said he felt the team bounced back well in the second half.
“I’m proud of them for going after it. They never gave up tonight.” Rogers said. “They worked hard from end line to end line. We need to do something different offensively and that’s what we’ll work on over the next few weeks, but they came here and gave it their all.” I’m really proud to be their coach.”
New Ulm ended the game even with Marshall on the board. Each team recorded 6 offensive rebounds and 12 defensive rebounds. Huelke and Bigler each led their teams with two offensive rebounds and four defensive rebounds.
Marshall, who held a 32-point lead with four minutes left, was able to get some varsity experience again by sitting as the starter.
The Tigers forced 22 turnovers from New Ulm and 12 of their own. Bigler and Gillingham had four and three steals, respectively, for Marshall, and Bakker had three steals for New Ulm.
The Marshall Tigers remained undefeated with the win and are now 16-0 on the season. Marshall will look to keep the ball moving as it hosts Fairmont (9-3) in its next game Saturday at 1 p.m.
“Fairmont was also doing well this year, so the schedule was tough.” Westby reiterated that the Tigers had a tough week with a tough schedule. “We are expected to step up our battles heading into the tournament, so I hope we can continue to do that.”
With the loss, New Ulm fell to 9-5. The Eagles will look to regain the momentum they built last month when they travel to Casson-Manterville to take on Byron (11-3) on Saturday at 2:30 p.m.
“We will make some adjustments and move forward.” Rogers said. “Every time we play, we learn something about ourselves and we learn something about our opponent. So we just take that knowledge now and go home and tomorrow we have a practice plan to work on those things.” is.”
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