BRODHEAD — It wasn’t the prettiest game on the season, but the Lady Cardinals ousted Edgerton 44-36 at home Dec. 11.

“I’m never going to question their effort. For our size, those girls play with a lot of heart and they get after it,” Brodhead coach Brian Kammerer said. “But you could tell in the locker room after the game that they are happy we won, but they understand that this wasn’t our best game and that we have a lot of work to do.”

While the shooting percentage was low, and shot selection timid at best, Brodhead (5-3, 3-3 Rock Valley) was able to overcome a six-point second half deficit thanks to a punishing defensive effort and clutch shooting from the charity stripe in the waning minutes.

“We just brought the energy as a team. Those late shots gave us the momentum we needed,” junior guard Carissa Purdue said, adding that a late spark came from a varsity newcomer. “(Freshman) Madisyn Kail stepped it up for us, she played great defense and hit some big free throws towards the end.”

Playing without injured freshman guard Kiarra Moe, the team’s offensive sparkplug, points were slow to come by early on. 

Brodhead led 8-6 after 10 minutes of play, thanks in part to a string of defensive stops from senior Alexis Oliver and a 3-pointer from Jacklyn Kleeman. However, after back-to-back-to-back trips to the hoops in transition ended with missed layups — and missed put-backs — the offense went stagnant for Brodhead. Brodhead coach Brian Kammerer said the failed attempts seemed to get into his players’ heads.

“I know we’re not big, but we have to be able to finish around the rim. We’re not going strong to the hoop right now, and it’s showing,” Kammerer said. “Not making excuses, but losing Kiarra Moe at McFarland, she’s our workhorse through the offense. You kind of saw the effect of that tonight. I didn’t think we were as aggressive offensively.”

Edgerton (0-8, 0-6) would close out the half on a 7-0 run in the final 3:36 of the half, mostly thanks to dumping the ball inside to forward Morgan Demrow, who cast a shadow on the Cardinals with her height. Demrow had 12 points in the half and 17 in the game.

“I think mentally we just shut down. (The missed shots) got into our heads. We weren’t confident in our shots,” Oliver said. “We didn’t really play as a team in the first half, and we made sure as captains we talked about playing as a team in the second half.”

Trailing 18-14 at half, the coaching staff was not pleased. Neither were the players.

“We said we needed to come out as a team and start over. We needed to play defense, run the offense, move our feet and come out with a new energy,” Purdue said.

While the Cardinals’ offense still struggled to put the ball in the hoop, the defensive jets were turned on by a mix of a full-court press, half-court trap and high-pressure man-to-man defense. While Oliver had four steals in the first half, Zoe Tresemer and Carissa Purdue were the spark plugs in the second half, forcing a litany of Edgerton turnovers.

“We didn’t think that in the half-court we were bringing enough pressure at them,” Kammerer said. “We thought they would struggle a bit with handling the ball, so we decided to extend (the pressure) and see what we could do in the full-court, because all we were doing was swapping baskets for a while.”

The Tide still led 33-28 with under six minutes to play, but the Cardinals kept at it, running off a 10-0 run thanks to 5-for-6 shooting from the stripe, a bucket by Oliver off a rebound and Kleeman draining her second 3 of the night with 3:07 left.

“Those 3-pointers bring a lot of momentum. It’s such a relief when the whole team contributes,” said Oliver, who added that the momentum began to shift with the up-tempo defense. “We got better on defense and had those steals. We were more aggressive.”

Oliver led the Cardinals with 12 points, Kleeman and Madisyn Kail each had eight and Purdue seven. Brodhead was 19 of 28 from the line in the game, but 8 of 10 in the final four minutes.

“I thought we shot it a little bit better at the free throw line, but I thought we left a lot of free throws out there as well,” Kammerer said.

After Demrow’s 17, Kate Fox Gunderson had 10 for Edgerton.

“Credit to Edgerton — they haven’t won a game all year and they came and gave us a great battle,” Kammerer said.