Staff photo by Travis Rosenau Sleepy Eye’s Kaydince Thoms (21) backs in towards the paint while guarded by Sleepy Eye St. Marys’ Reagan Severson on Thursday night at St. Mary’s High School. Also pictured is Sleepy Eye’s Brea Mertz (14) and St. Marys’ Liz Schwint (54).

SLEEPY EYE — Behind Madison Mathiowetz’s 44-point night and an all-around team effort on the glass, Sleepy Eye St. Mary’s topped Sleepy Eye Public 71-61 on Thursday night in a Tomahawk Conference girls’ basketball game.

Mathiowetz also had 12 rebounds and five assists in the win, while Allie Labat had 9 points, five rebounds and four steals. Also for the Knights, Natalie Fischer had 7 points, Liz Schwint had 6 points and seven rebounds, Katelyn Rutscher had six rebounds and Reagan Severson had 4 points, four rebounds and three assists.

“We’ve worked on rebounding all week this week, actually,” Knights assistant coach Ashley Schieffert said. “Lots of drills on boxing out, rebounding, one-and-done, second opportunities. I think we did a pretty good job tonight, but there’s always room for improvement.”

Kadence Hesse led the Indians with 31 points, five rebounds and five assists, while Kaydince Thoms had 13 points and five rebounds. Also for Sleepy Eye, Brea Mertz had 8 points, five rebounds and three assists and Brooklyn Moldan had four rebounds and three assists.

The Knights held an early 4-point lead before the Indians tied things up at 6-all, getting all of their points in that stretch from Thoms. Two free throws from Mathiowetz, a corner 3 from Fischer and a layup from Mathiowetz put the Knights up 20-8 and forced a Sleepy Eye timeout with 6:49 left in the half.

The Indians cut their deficit to 22-17 after a 3 by Hesse and a bucket inside from Moldan, but back-to-back baskets by Mathiowetz had the Knights back up by 9. The Knights took that 9-point lead into the break, leading 34-25 at halftime.

Hesse drained a 3 to start the second half, but Mathiowetz answered with a putback bucket. Schwint then drained a hook shot in the paint and Mathiowetz converted an and-one to give the Knights a 41-28 lead with 15:03 to go.

After a 3 by Hesse had the Indians down 53-43, the Knights went on an 8-0 run to lead 61-43, getting three buckets from Mathiowetz and one from Severson during the run.

After a slow first half, Mertz picked things up in the second half and scored every point during a 6-0 run that cut the Indians’ deficit to 61-49. The Knights pushed their lead to 69-51 after that, and while Hesse made the last 12 points for the Indians in the game to keep things close, there wasn’t enough time left to mount a serious comeback.

“[St. Mary’s] got two and three shots,” Sleepy Eye head coach Sarah Hesse said. “They’d miss the first shot, which is what we want, but then we wouldn’t get the rebound and they’d score again. Those are things that we can’t have happen. We wanted to focus on unforced turnovers, and we had more than we should’ve on that, too. Making sure someone’s there before you throw it, or ball goes through your hands before you catch it type-thing — little things like that that we need to clean up. When you play good teams like this, you can’t do that. They make you pay.”

The Indians were also without freshman Cadence Okerman, one of their top 3-point shooters, who has been out since injuring her hand against Minnesota Valley Lutheran.

“We’re excited to get Cadence Okerman back playing with us,” coach Hesse said. “She left a little bit of a hole. … She’s got her cast off, she can start light basketball activities next week, so we’re hoping that the week of the 14th, she’ll get started back in our rotation just in time for playoffs.”

St. Mary’s, now 17-1 overall and 12-0 in the conference, hosts Buffalo Lake-Hector-Stewart on Tuesday night for a big conference matchup. Sleepy Eye (17-4, 9-4) hosts Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop on Tuesday night in conference action.