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New Ulm sinks Sleepy Eye at the buzzer

Staff photo by Steve Muscatello Sleepy Eye’s McKenzie Cselovski (12) takes a shot over New Ulm’s Joey Batt (11) Thursday at Sleepy Eye High School. For more photos of this event go to cu.nujournal.com

Sleepy Eye — New Ulm’s Iyanna Wieland didn’t have any points all night, but when she got on the board for the first time, it couldn’t have been any sweeter.

Wieland sank a game-winning jumper with 4.2 seconds remaining to give the Eagles the victory over Sleepy Eye Thursday night in a nonconference girls’ basketball game, 68-66.

Both teams were undefeated this season and after Thursday night, Sleepy Eye fell for the first time, while New Ulm continued its unbeaten ways.

Leading the way for New Ulm was Meleah Reinhart with 37 points. Also for the Eagles was Joey Batt with 14 points. For the Indians, McKenzie Cselovszki had a double-double with 18 points and 12 rebounds and Madison Heiderscheidt added 13 points.

Sleepy Eye jumped out to a 5-0 start after both teams failed to get on the board after the first two minutes of play. New Ulm later tied the game up at 9-9 on a 3-pointer by Batt.

Sleepy Eye later got on a run and took an eight-point lead on a basket by Madison Krueger to make the score 25-17. The Eagles battledº back and lead 37-34 at halftime after a 3-pointer by Emma Bute.

The Indians regained control early in the second half, taking a 39-37 lead after a basket by Krueger and a 3-pointer by Ibberson. The Eagles immediately responded by tying the game back up on a layup by Reinhart.

Sleepy Eye lead 50-47 before the Eagles again tied the game up on a 3-pointer by Reinhart. The Indians responded by scoring four points in a row before the Eagles could answer back on a basket by Morgan Eikanger.

Reinhart would again tie the game up with a pair of free throws at 57-57 with 3:46 to play.

Cselovszki tied the game at 66-66 after making on of two free throws with 33.4 seconds to go, before a pass back to Wieland  led to victory for New Ulm. Sleepy Eye had a timeout to spare and called it with 2 seconds remaining after getting the ball past half court. With a deep 3-point attempt, the shot fell short and New Ulm were able to remain unbeaten on the season.

Sleepy Eye head coach Ryan Hulke felt that his girls battled and did many things right, but felt that they could have had some better free throw shooting. He also took the blame for the teams late defensive schemes.

“We need to make a couple free throws,” Hulke said. “We missed 6 free throws in the second half I believe and that’s our difference. It puts them [New Ulm] in a tougher situation possibly to shoot a 3 if we’re up 2 or 3. We just make a couple of free throws late and things change.

“Also, probably the defense we ran at the end is my fault. We tried something — I thought I had a good idea of what they were going to do — they actually did it, but we just kind of left ourselves outnumbered on the play side,” Hulke said. “We knew they were going to try to go to Meleah off the backside, so I’ll take that one.”

Eagles head coach Dan Reinhart feels that Sleepy Eye is a very good basketball team that is well coached. He said that there was a reason that the Indians are one of the favorites in their section and was proud to see his girls pull out the win. He was also proud of Wieland sinking the game-winner.

“We were going to run a set for our point guard, Meleah, and they [Sleepy Eye] overplayed it,” Reinhart said. “We just reversed it back and Iyanna basically was standing alone on the baseline and hit that shot. As a sophomore it takes some courage to take that shot. She didn’t have a great game before that, but she was willing and able to take that shot and she grew up. She grew up.”

Sleepy Eye falls to 6-1 on the year and plays at Goodhue on Wednesday. New Ulm moves to 8-0 on the year and plays at Norwood Young America Thursday.

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