With 29 steals on the night and a 45-0 run in the first half, the Knights rolled past the Buffalo Lake-Hector-Stewart Mustangs 93-35 in a Tomahawk Division girls basketball game.

Morgan Mathiowetz led the Knights with 33 points, nine steals, six assists and four rebounds, while Olivia Schieffert had 22 points, six steals, six assists and five rebounds. Taylor Mathiowetz also had 10 points for the Knights, while Brynne Ibberson had 8 points, five steals, three rebounds and three assists, Sydney Tauer had 6 points and seven rebounds and Natalie Fischer added 5 points.

“One thing we really work hard at is our defense,” Knights head coach Bruce Woitas said. “We want to put good pressure on and I thought we did a really good job with that the first half, especially the first few minutes and that created a lot of our offense for us as well and then we just kind of float from there. I think we work hard on defense, take some pride in that and we’ve got some good depth this year, too. It doesn’t matter who’s on te court, we have that good defense.”

Lily Hubin led the Mustangs with 17 points, while Callie Hable and Elizabeth Ovitt aded 7 points apiece.

Staff photo by Travis Rosenau Sleepy Eye St. Marys’ Taylor Mathiowetz makes a one-handed pass for an assist during Friday evening’s Tomahawk Division girls basketball game against Buffalo Lake-Hector-Stewart at St. Mary’s High School.

BLHS got the first bucket of the game on a 3 from Ovitt, but Morgan Mathiowetz answered with a 3 of her own moments later to tie it up. Hubin hit another 3 to give BLHS a 6-3 lead, but a layup from Ibberson and a bucket inside by Fischer put the Knights in front. A jumper by Hable gave BLHS its final lead of the night at 8-7.

After that, the Knights’ defense picked up and created turnovers all over the court. From stealing rebounds, intercepting passes and poking the ball away from ball handlers, the Knights started what ended up being a 45-0 run.

Morgan Mathiowetz started that run with a pair of free throws to put the Knights up 9-8 and she quickly had a steal for a layup to make it 11-8. Another steal for the Knights ended with a Morgan Mathiowetz-to-Audra Hoffmann bucket inside to force a BLHS timeout with 12:35 left in the half.

Morgan Mathiowetz had 22 points during the Knights’ run, which Hable ended with a bucket to have the Mustangs down 52-10.

The Mustangs were finally able to get a little offense going again late after Hable sank a 3, but Brylee Hansen was quick to respond for the Knights with a jumper to put the Knights up 58-13. After Hubin scored on the other end, Taylor Mathiowetz and Hubin exchanged 3s before Taylor Mathiowetz hit back-to-back 3s to close out the scoring in the half with the Knights up 66-18.

Staff photo by Travis Rosenau Buffalo Lake-Hector-Stewart’s Chloe Schultz (13) takes a rebound away from Sleepy Eye St. Marys’ Natalie Fischer during Friday evening’s Tomahawk Division girls basketball game at St. Mary’s High School.

Woitas took his starters out with a little more than three minutes to go in the first half and then subbed in a fresh lineup again with eight minutes and change left in the game and his squad up 91-27 in running time.

“Obviously we have our top players that we expect to do [well], but it’s nice to see other people be involved in that in the scoring as well,” Woitas said. “When you have that, it just makes you a tough team to guard because you have other people that can step up. If they try to take somebody away, we do a good job of finding that open person. I think we’re really unselfish with some of our transition, too. We get into that open person so they can get that shot as well. It’s a lot of fun to watch.”

St. Mary’s (12-0, 8-0) hosts Sleepy Eye on Monday in a Tomahawk game, while BLHS (5-4, 2-4) hosts Lester Prairie on Tuesday night in a Tomahawk game.