Thanks to their relentless defensive and rebounding efforts, the BOLD Warriors held Sleepy Eye to 7 points in the second half on the way to a 79-27 win in a girls basketball game.

Jace Schauman led Sleepy Eye with 10 points, four rebounds and two steals, while Taylor Berkner had 7 points, nine rebounds and two assists and Alexis Hoffman had 7 points. Destiney Dittbenner added 3 points, seven rebounds and four steals for Sleepy Eye, which fell to 1-1 on the season with the loss.

Lilly Henriksen led BOLD (1-1) with 26 points, while Kenley Elfering had 12 points. Ema Flann chipped in 11 points for the Warriors, who were hungry to get back on track following a 77-41 loss to St. Mary’s on Friday, fed their hunger on Saturday, albeit not right away.

From the opening tip-off until about six minutes left in the first half, Saturday’s game showed off a little of what both teams were capable of.

Staff photo by Travis Rosenau Sleepy Eye senior Jaelynn Schauman goes up for a layup during a nonconference girls basketball game against BOLD Saturday afternoon at St. Mary’s High School.

Once the Warriors figured out their defense and began turning turnovers into points, however, two runs of 11-0 and 12-0 highlighted the final minutes of the opening half and set them up for success in the second half.

“They were for sure better defensively,” Sleepy Eye head coach Grant Romberg said. “They’re a well-coached team and a little more experienced. We were playing a lot of first-years, a lot of girls that played their second game ever playing any varsity minutes, so experience is a big factor, too. We’ll improve throughout the year on that, and even with the loss, it’s good experience for the ones coming up. We’re a little short numbers-wise, so obviously fatigue by the second half kind of played a big factor.”

Jace Schauman scored the first 6 points of the game for Sleepy Eye, which BOLD had an answer for each time as the Warriors took a 10-6 lead with a bucket inside from Elfering. A long 2 from Hoffman had Sleepy Eye down 10-8 and a 3 by Berkner moments later had it a 1-point game with Sleepy Eye down 12-11.

BOLD increased its lead to 7, 20-13, after that, Sleepy Eye cut it back to a 5-point game on two different occasions, once on a jumper from Berkner to make it 20-15 and once on a layup from Jace Schauman to make it a 22-17 game. An 11-0 run by the Warriors followed, however, as they stretched their lead to 33-17.

A 3 from Dittbenner ended the BOLD run, but the Warriors began to take the ball away and dominate in the paint, ending the half on a 12-0 run for a 45-20 halftime lead.

The Warriors didn’t let up in the second half as they controlled the rest of the game, with substitutions entering the game for both teams in the final seven minutes.

“End of the half and most of the second half, our rebounding effort was not good at all,” Romberg said. “It’s hard to win games when you give teams second and third opportunities on the offensive side. So we’ve got to clean up the rebounding, and again, a lot of that comes to experience, because foul trouble hurt us when we had to sit Jaelynn [Schauman] because she’s a big part of the game for us.”

Jaelynn Schauman, a 5-11 senior forward, had three fouls in the first half Saturday.

Sleepy Eye (1-1) hosts Redwood Valley on Tuesday night, while BOLD (1-1) hosts Yellow Medicine East on Tuesday night.

Note: This story and its photos will print in this coming Tuesday’s edition of The Journal.