Staff photo by Steve Muscatello Sleepy Eye’s Madi Heiderscheidt drives past a St Clair defender during the first half Monday in Sleepy Eye. For more photos of this event go to cu.nujournal.com

SLEEPY EYE — Behind Madi Heiderscheidt’s 29-point, five-assist night, the Sleepy Eye girls’ basketball squad took care of No. 8-ranked St. Clair on Monday night in nonconference play 78-47.

Heiderscheidt also added five steals on the night and with her five assists, remains one assist away from tying the school record for career assists with 310.

Brianna Polesky had 14 points, six rebounds, three steals and three assists for Sleepy Eye, while Madison Krueger added 11 points and five rebounds.

The Indians (4-2) took an early 15-9 lead on a rebound put-back by Polesky, which forced a St. Clair timeout with 10:19 to play in the half. After a 3 by Courtney Dittbenner, Sleepy Eye led 21-9, which forced the Cyclones to use their second timeout within two minutes.

After a Heiderscheidt steal and an and-one conversion put the Indians up 35-19, St. Clair took its third timeout of the half with 3:49 left in the first half. The Indians closed the half out with a 44-29 lead after three straight buckets from beyond the arc by Heiderscheidt, Hanna Himmelman and Krueger.

The Indians hit seven 3s in the first half, and Sleepy Eye coach Ryan Hulke had nothing but positive things to say about his shooters.

“It’s nice to be home,” Hulke said. “We shot well, but we can shoot well. It’s not just Madi and Bri and Sarah. We’ve got girls off the bench that can shoot the 3 extremely well, so if teams play zone, we can do that.

“I liked the way that we played to any pace we needed to play,” Hulke said. “We could play fast, we played very slow to drag that first half out, too. That’s an eighth-ranked team in state. We played three state-ranked teams in our first six games and then we have another one coming in here on Friday in Cedar Mountain…it’s making us better.”

The Indians started the second half out aggressive. A 15-foot jumper and layup by Heiderscheidt put the Indians ahead 50-32 in the opening minutes of the second half.

Back-to-back steals and layups by Heiderscheidt gave Sleepy Eye a 56-33 lead with less than 13 minutes to go.

Krueger converted on back-to-back and-ones to put the Indians ahead 70-42 with less than six minutes to play. Later, a 3 by Brittney Dittbenner put the Indians up 77-42 with less than three minutes to play, which helped the Indians cruise to a big victory.

Sleepy Eye hosts Minnesota Valley Lutheran at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday.