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Cedar Mountain/Comfrey girls’ basketball team defeats GFW

Staff photo by Steve Muscatello Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop’s Miah Busse (24) tries to stop a shot from Cedar Mountain/Comfrey’s Taylor Rose (32) during the second half Friday in Winthrop. For more photos of this event go to cu.nujournal.com

WINTHROP — Cedar Mountain/Comfrey almost coughed up a double-digit lead late with Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop finally finding its groove.

Despite GFW’s persistence and resilience, CM/C managed to hang on to win 61-55 in a Tomahawk Conference girls’ basketball game on Friday.

The Cougars (3-0, 1-0 Tomahawk) began the second half on a 14-2 run to take a 46-29 lead less than three minutes into the second half to take total control of the game.

“A lot of times, games are won in those first three minutes of the second half,” CM/C coach Mike Kelly said. “That was probably the difference tonight. If we don’t make that run, we would’ve been in trouble at the end of the game. That was very important there.”

The Thunderbirds (0-1, 0-1) responded, however, with a 13-2 run of their own — during which senior Halley Busse accounted for nine points and sophomore Miah Busse accounted for four.

That run was made possible thanks to a timeout that GFW coach Ryan Jacobson took as soon as his team fell behind 46-29.

“I could see in our body language,” Jacobson said. “I said, ‘Right now, we’re all focusing on what’s going wrong in our individual world. We’ve got to talk, get out of our heads and play together. If we don’t start talking, this thing is going to get out of hand.'”

Less than three minutes after that 13-2 run, junior Emily Heimkes drained a 3 that narrowed CM/C’s lead to 53-47 with 6:32 remaining.

“I think we started to slack off a little bit,” CM/C junior Taylor Rose said. “Once we got our momentum back, we started to pick it up again.”

GFW came knocking again with a pair of free throws from junior Erin Haas that made it 59-55. Miah Busse missed two free throws that could have narrowed the lead down to two before CM/C junior Erica Bock nailed two free throws of her own to make it 61-55.

From there, CM/C was able to play keepaway just long enough to eat up the clock it needed.

Rose got CM/C going in the first half with a 13-point performance, finishing with a game-high 21 points on 8-for-12 shooting on the night. Fellow junior Jordan Kevelin stepped it up in the second half with 12 of her 19 points, including a 3-for-3 shooting performance right out of the gate.

“For our team, we’re playing about eight girls right now and some nights, we play a slower team and tonight we played a quicker team,” Kelly said. “Everybody’s going to be very important and luckily for us, we’ve got somebody who always steps up big. It seems like we have somebody different every night.”

Senior Paige Richert got into foul trouble early, but notched all seven of her points in the second half in helping CM/C retain its lead.

For GFW, Halley Busse led with 20 points. Haas, Emma Jo Elder and Miah Busse each had seven points apiece, while Katelynn Firle and Heimkes each had five points apiece coming off the bench.

“In my opinion, Cedar Mountain is one of the top teams in our league, in the area,” Jacobson said. “They’re well-balanced, they’ve got shooters all over the place, they’ve got Richert inside. It’s a tough, tough matchup and we knew that coming in — we knew this was going to be a tough one for us to open with.

“But I felt good about our effort. I felt good about we hung in there and battled to the end.”

GFW plays Tuesday at New Ulm Cathedral, while CM/C hosts Springfield on Tuesday.

CM/C 32 29 — 61

GFW 27 28 — 55

CM/C (61)

Bock 1-4 2-2 4, Jemmings 1-5 0-2 2, Boyle 2-9 0-3 6, Kevelin 6-11 6-8 19, Richert 2-4 3-5 7, Rose 8-12 5-5 21, Pidde 0-1 2-2 2, Toll 0-1 0-0 0.

GFW (55)

Haas 2-5 3-4 7, H Busse 4-21 11-15 20, E Elder 2-4 2-4 7, M Elder 1-4 1-4 3, M Busse 1-5 5-9 7, Firle 2-5 0-0 5, Heimkes 1-7 2-2 5, Rettig 0-0 1-2 1.

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