Eskomo Girls Back In Section Finals

Wes Vork-NSO

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Mar 6, 2012

Dwight Cadwell-NSO

The Esko Eskomos once again have advanced to the finals of Section 7A and for the third consecutive season the Lady Eskomos will face the Braham Bombers with a trip to the state tournament on the line.

The Eskomos who prevailed with a 55-38 victory found themselves behind early as the Mustangs jumped out to an early 10-2 lead and a 20-6 lead in the first half. With Esko trailing by eight the Eskomos scored eight straight points to cut the lead to 20-14.

Esko’s Marisa Shady told Northland Sports Online, “Even when we were down we never gave up, we have confidence in one another and we believe in one another and I knew we would come back; we just needed to step up the defensive pressure.”

Helping turn around the second half and applying that defensive pressure were defensive specialists Steph Bandelin and Erika Shady.

For Bandelin the slow start was a bit of a flashback to the Section Final volleyball game where the Eskomos were down 13-8 in the fifth set to Hibbing only to have Bandelin and company pull out the win and advance to the state tournament. “It was a little bit like oh boy, but our intuition kicked in and we revved it up and were ready to go.” Adding, “We cranked it up on offense and defense; nobody wanted to lose. It was like blood, sweat and tears; as a team we gave it everything we had.”

The Eskomos continued to fight back in the first half as Megan Reuer scored six points down the stretch and it was Marisa Shady hitting a big three pointer as the Eskomos cut the lead to five at 24-19 at halftime.

The second half saw Savanna Trapp score the first basket and with a foul and her free throw the Eskomos cut the lead to two points. Following a Mora basket it was Trapp again cutting the lead to two points. Moments later Trapp scored again inside and was fouled and her free throw gave Esko the lead at 27-26.

Both teams battled over the next several minutes and Mora took their last lead of the game 33-32 with a little over ten minutes remaining but from then on it was the Esko’s defense and a balanced scoring attack to give the Eskomos the 17 point win.

After the game Esko head Coach Scott Antonutti gave all of the credit to the girls. “The entire season we talked about just persevering and the girls knew we had a couple of shots that just didn’t fall and they (Mora) shot the ball well early.” Antonutti further explained “All the girls have a lot of big game experience, not just in basketball but in other sports also. They have all been on the big stage before and they don’t panic.”

Mora was held scoreless for the final 6:47 of the game as Esko closed out the contest on a 10-0 run and outscored the Mustangs 36-14 in the second half for the Section Semi-Final victory at UMD.

Trapp led all scorers with 16 points on the night; she also finished with 8 rebounds and 6 blocked shots. Marisa Shady and Megan Reuer each scored 9 points on the night, Steph Bandelin, Erika Shady, and Brooke Schramm all scored 6 points and it was Kallyn Knutson finishing with 3 points on the night.

The Mustang’s were led by Kristen Pollema who scored 11 points, Emily Leeb added 9, and Noelle Elvehjem scored only 8 points, six coming from the free throw line. Elvehjem had scored 34 points in the section semi-final win over ML-WR. Paige Antonson and Emma Johnson finished the scoring with 5 points each.

The Eskomos improve to 26-3 on the season and they will face Braham in the Section 7AA championship game for the third consecutive season at UMD. Braham has knocked Esko out of the Section 7AA tournament for the last three seasons including a quarterfinal loss in 2009. Earlier this season the Eskomos played Braham real close, losing by just two points.

Dwight Cadwell can be reached at dwight@northlandsportsonline.com