Staff photo by Steve Muscatello Sleepy Eye’s McKenzie Cselovszki (left) looks on as her teammate Mya Ibberson (right) blocks a shot from Sleepy Eye St. Mary’s Sydney Windschitl Tuesday at Sleepy Eye High School. For more photos of this event go to cu.nujournal.com

SLEEPY EYE — The cross-town rivalry between Sleepy Eye and Sleepy Eye St. Mary’s added another chapter to its story on Tuesday night, and this game went down to the wire.

The Indians survived the Knights and pulled out a 62-60 win in Tomahawk Conference girls’ basketball action.

The Knights fell to 11-2 on the year and 4-2 in the conference, but coach Bruce Woitas was proud of the effort his team put out against their tough rival.

“They got off to a really good start, we battled back and cut it to 2 at the half,” Woitas said. “They got off to a good start again in the second half, put us down maybe 10, but our kids battled hard. A rebound here or a shot there, it could have made a whole big difference in the game. But give them credit, I think they were 7 of 8 from the foul line the last minute and a half, and they put the game away there. But our kids played hard.”

The Knights were led by Cassie Heinrichs with 22 points. Mallory Helget added 14 points, Madison Mathiowetz added 12 points and three steals and Sydney Windschitl had 10 points and nine rebounds for the Knights.

Jody Hansen also added seven boards and five assists for St. Mary’s.

Sleepy Eye was led by Madi Heiderscheidt, who had 26 points, six rebounds and five assists. Also for the Indians, Brianna Polesky had nine points, McKenzie Cselovszki had 8 points and six rebounds and Mya Ibberson had 7 points, eight rebounds and four blocks.

Cselovszki said that she wishes she wouldn’t have gotten into foul trouble (four fouls) so she could have played a little more, but she still was happy with the win over St. Mary’s.

“It was really exciting to beat our cross-town rival and to win overall,” Cselovszki said. “It’s a conference win and I think overall we played really well. We were ahead in the beginning and kind of lost that, but we still stayed ahead the whole game. We played well together, and that’s all that matters.”

Sleepy Eye started out aggressive with its pressure defense, taking a commanding 20-3 lead to force a Knights’ timeout with 10:41 left in the first half. Heiderscheidt had the Indians first 7 points of the game.

Back-to-back baskets by Helget, including a 3, and back-to-back buckets by Mathiowetz stopped the surging Indians, though, and had the Knights trailing 20-12 after the timeout.

A pair of late free throws by Hansen had St. Mary’s down by just 2, 33-31, at halftime.

The Indians began the second half with a 7-0 run to lead 40-31. The run featured two baskets by Polesky, including a 3-pointer.

The Knights, however, refused to quit and went on a 7-0 run of their own right after to trail 40-38 and force a Sleepy Eye timeout.

With less than a minute and a half to play in the game, Helget knocked down two key 3s to cut the Knights’ deficit to 61-58, but with Sleepy Eye playing the foul game and less than 11 seconds to go, the Knights were unable to get a decent shot off and pull out the come-from-behind win.

The Indians improved to 10-3 overall and 5-1 in the conference and travel to take on Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday in conference action.

The Knights continue conference play at Minnesota Valley Lutheran at 7:30 p.m. on Friday.