Jays close it out
Erin Mullowney knows her team nearly squandered a big lead on Tuesday night. But the Jamestown High School junior helped squash any hopes of a Devils Lake comeback with a 3-pointer that was part of a 9-0 second-half run en route to a 69-58 Class A nonconference win at the JHS gym.By: By Chris Aarhus, The Jamestown Sun, The Jamestown Sun
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Erin Mullowney knows her team nearly squandered a big lead on Tuesday night.
But the Jamestown High School junior helped squash any hopes of a Devils Lake comeback with a 3-pointer that was part of a 9-0 second-half run en route to a 69-58 Class A nonconference win at the JHS gym.
Mullowney, who finished with eight points, said the fifth-ranked Blue Jays had to stop the surging Firebirds, who had climbed back into contention with an 11-0 run that cut the deficit to six points at 56-50 with 5 minutes, 3 seconds to go.
“We just needed to find a way to come back,” said Mullowney, a 5-foot-4 guard. “We dug out and all of us pushed hard and we worked our butts off. ... We won the game. Now we just need to learn how to put it away.”
Another sparkling performance from Kyra Dewald led the Blue Jays. She scored 17 of her game-high 21 points in the first half. She had a season-high 30 in a win at Turtle Mountain on Friday.
However, the Blue Jays struggled early, committing 13 turnovers in the first 11 minutes of the game. They settled down the rest of the first half, not committing a turnover the rest of the way while rallying to take a 36-27 advantage at halftime.
“It was ugly,” JHS coach Andy Skunberg said. “We had the spots we wanted to go, but we weren’t connecting on the passes.”
Defense paved the way in the latter portion of the first half, as Jamestown surrendered only one field goal in the final 7:33. That continued into the second half, which Jamestown opened with a 12-0 run to balloon its lead to 48-27.
Devils Lake finally found its groove, though, using a 23-8 lead to get within six, which made way for Jamestown’s momentum-killing run. Paige Peterson finished with 15 points, while McKayla Orr added 12 for the Blue Jays, who improved to 5-1.
“A good team will battle back like we did and that’s what we did,” Skunberg said. “We grinned and beared it. We settled down and started to do the little things that got us a 20-point lead.”
Devils Lake, which dropped to 1-5, was led by Taylor Swanson’s 17 points.
“They’re the best defensive team we’ve seen all year,” Skunberg said of Devils Lake. “They play very fundamentally sound defense. They took us out of our offense. What saved us is we made it an up-and-down game. We were getting layups in transition, so that definitely helped.”
Jamestown returns to West Region action at home with Dickinson at 5:45 p.m. Friday followed by Williston at 3:30 p.m. Saturday.
Jamestown 69, Devils Lake 58
Devils Lake 27 58
Jamestown 36 69
DL: Taylor Swanson 17, Jadyn Fee 12, Madison Walford 6, Christa Lysne 6, Randii Widmer 4, Morghan Carew 4, Alexa Gathman 3, Emily Schafer 3, Dru Lunday 3. Totals 17-66 21-32 58.
Jamestown: Kyra Dewald 21, Paige Peterson 15, McKayla Orr 12, Erin Mullowney 8, Billie Buchanan 6, Rebekah Horgan 4, Miah Dabill 2, Addie Eamon 2. Totals 27-60 13-17 69.
Note: Additional stats not provided.
Sun sports writer Chris Aarhus can be reached at (701) 952-8462 or by email at caarhus@jamestownsun.com
Tags: sports, jays, basketball
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