Staff photo by Travis Rosenau Springfield’s Sydney Hauger goes up for a layup as Nicollet/Loyola’s Marah Hulke defends during Monday night’s Section 2A playoff game in Springfield.

SPRINGFIELD — While No. 7-seeded Nicollet/Loyola carried a 38-36 lead into halftime against No. 2-seeded Springfield in Monday night’s Section 2A, South Subsection girls’ playoff game, the Tigers roared back and outscored the Raiders 48-24 in the second half on the way to an 82-62 win at Springfield High School.

Sydney Hauger led the Tigers with 41 points, 10 rebounds, four assists and four steals, while Courtney Wendt added 10 points, seven rebounds and four assists.

Also for Springfield, Megan Ploeger added 8 points and Maddy Digmann chipped in 7 points.

The Raiders were led by Marah Hulke’s 14 points, seven rebounds and five assists, while Hayley Selby had 14 points and seven boards. The Raiders also got 9 points from Megan Frutiger, 8 points from Zoey Weller and 7 points and six assists from Josi Hansen.

The Tigers struggled with getting shots to fall early in the first half and the Raiders capitalized as a result. But with a better shot selection and shots starting to drop in the second half, the Tigers pulled away.

“I think we weren’t shooting as well as we usually do in the first half,” Hauger said. “So I think in the second half, we really turned it on when we started driving to the basket, and it made more opportunities for us to get more wide-open shots.”

After the Tigers jumped out to a quick 5-0 lead, Nicollet responded with an 11-0 run to lead 11-5, getting a corner 3 by Hulke to cap off the run. The Tigers answered that run with a 6-0 run to tie things up at 11, with a steal and layup by Hauger completing the run.

The Raiders got back in front and led 17-11 before the Tigers got an 8-0 run to retake the lead at 19-17. Hauger had the game-tying layup and steal and layup to give Springfield the lead during that run.

After Nicollet took a brief lead again on a 3 by Hansen, the Tigers retook the lead and pushed it to 31-24 after a 3 by Digmann. The Raiders got the lead back late, 35-33, after a pair of free throws by Hulke, but the Tigers responded with a 3 by Hauger to lead 36-35 with less than a minute to go in the half.

Weller answered that 3 with a 3 of her own, however, giving the Raiders a 38-36 halftime lead.

A 3 by Hauger kicked off the second half and the Tigers quickly pushed their lead to 52-43 with 13:46 left to play after back-to-back and-ones by Hauger. The Tigers continued to push the pace and ended up leading by as much as 25, 80-55, after a bucket inside by Sam Richert with minutes to play.

“I told the girls going into [playoffs] that everybody’s got a 0-0 record and you’ve got to believe, and I think they believed the whole night,” Raiders head coach Jordan Rudenick said of his team’s performance. “I told them in the locker room that this was kind of the story of our season. We’ve played some really, really good basketball, and I think people saw that tonight, and then we had our moments where there’s some things to improve on.

“My last message to them in the locker room was that we all know that there’s things that are more important right now, and you just go out and play the game and you have fun — because this team’s been through a lot, and I’m really, really proud of them.”

Springfield will next take on No. 6-seeded Granada-Huntley-East Chain/Truman/Martin Luther at 7:45 p.m. Friday at Lake Crystal-Wellcome Memorial High School.