BELOIT — Despite the second half being a wash, the No. 4-ranked Albany Comets ran away with a 62-38 win over Beloit Turner on Monday, Jan. 2.
The Comets had a 35-11 lead after the first half. Although both teams scored 27 points in the second half, Turner was unable to overcome the 24-point first-half deficit.
Alana Durtschi and Abby Hollis led Albany to victory with 19 and 17 points, respectively. The pair made two 3-pointers and five free-throw each. Hollis was perfect at the line, while Durtschi had seven opportunities. Overall, the Comets were 18-for-23 at the charity stripe for 78%. Gracie Freitag was 3-for-4 at the line with nine points, while Avary Briggs shot 3-for-5 on free throws with five points. Anna Ellinger made both of her free-throw attempts and tallied six points.
Mariya Babilius led the Trojans in the first half with six points, all from beyond the arc. She was silenced in the second half, while teammate Nadilee Fernandez went off for 10 second-half points. Nevayah House, who was scoreless in the first, tallied 10 points in the second half, too. In total, Fernandez and House led the team with 14 and 10 points, respectively. Turner had just seven chances at the free-throw line, capitalizing on three of them.
BELMONT 53, PECATONICA 48
BLANCHARDVILLE — The Vikings had a lead in the closing minutes of the second half but were unable to hang on, as they fell to Belmont on Tuesday, Jan. 3.
“Belmont is a good team,” head coach Linda Hendrickson said. “We came ready to compete.”
The Braves began to pull away nearing halftime, but Pecatonica roared back with a pair of buckets from Kaisen Kolb. Anna Tisch’s 3-pointer got the Vikings within five going into the locker room.
In the second half, Belmont increased its lead to 10. Once again, the Vikings battled back — this time to take the lead. The game was close until the end, where the Braves snuck away with a five-point victory.
Diana Hendrickson led the Vikings with 19 points, nine of which came at the free-throw line.
“Diana did a nice job of posting up hard tonight, which resulted in her going to the line often,” Linda Hendrickson said. “She went 9-for-13.”
The second leading scorer for Pecatonica was none other than Chloe Schraepfer. Although she scored just two points in the first half, Schraepfer rebounded in the second for 10 points.
“While Chloe had a quiet first half in scoring, in the second half she hit a couple big threes for us,” Linda Hendrickson said. “It helped us close the gap.”
The remaining scorers were Tisch (eight points), Bri Peterson (five points) and Kolb (four points).
Belmont was led by the duo of Kaci Riechers and Morgan Freeman with 12 and 11 points, respectively. Kennedy Howell trailed with seven points, while three different players tallied six points: Lainey Riechers, Mia Hodgson and Rylee Rogers.
