Barnum Girls Take Control Of Polar League

Dan Lingle-For NSO

Jan 28

Dwight Cadwell-NSO

The Barnum Bombers took a step closer to the Polar League championship Thursday night when they beat the Esko Eskomos 61-41 in Barnum. The Bombers built a 15 point, 35-20 lead at halftime and went on to win by twenty.

The Bombers jumped out to an early 12-4 lead, but the Eskomos fought back to cut the Barnum lead to two points at 14-12. A missed lay-up that would have tied the game at 14-14 was the turning point for Barnum, going on an 11-0 run and taking the thirteen point lead. Esko was able to only trail Barnum’s by less than ten points and that was in the second half.

“These are tough games; the Polar league battles are always tough,” head coach Randy Myhre told Northland Sports Online. “Esko is well coached and very deep with a lot of talent. It’s nice just to have them here this year where it’s hard for our opponents to win.”

The second half saw both teams coming out to a slow start with both trading baskets and neither able to gain much momentum. Barnum’s Katrina Newman continued to drive to the basket and dominate inside, while Katie Myhre fired away from the outside, hitting five three pointers on the night.

“We needed to play a good solid game,” head coach Scott Antonutti told Northland Sports Online. “Barnum is a good team. They can hurt you inside and outside. We needed to have a good team effort; otherwise they can hurt you in too many ways.”

Katrina Newman paced the Bombers with 23 points on the night, Katie Myhre added 15, Jessica Newman had 10, Sarah Myhre finished with 7, Leah Nordvall chipped in 4 points and Jenna Zymslony finished with 2 points.

Keely Deadrick and Savanna Trapp each had 12 points for the Eskomos, Amanda Bergstedt scored 8, Lydia Pelletier scored 6, Alyson Glumac ended with 2 and rounding out Esko’s scoring was Katie Tonner with 1 point.

The Bombers improve to 15-2 on the season and will be in action again next Thursday when they play host to Moose Lake-Willow River. Esko falls to 13-3 overall and next play at Grand Rapids on Monday night.

Dwight Cadwell can be reached at dwight@northlandsportsonline.com