Mathiowetz didn’t let it slow her down in the final two minutes, however, as she scored 7 of her team’s final 9 points to help the Knights fend off the Cougars for a 74-70 win.

Mathiowetz finished with a game-high 43 points and added 11 rebounds, four assists and two steals as the Knights (18-1, 14-0) guaranteed themselves a share of the Tomahawk Division title with the win. The Knights can win the title outright by winning at least one of their final two Tomahawk Division games this season.

Mathiowetz was red hot with her drives to the bucket and jump shots throughout much of the game, but her one miss in the final two minutes was cleaned up with a clutch rebound and putback by Audra Hoffmann, who finished with 6 points and nine rebounds. Hoffmann’s putback gave the Knights a 72-67 lead with 25 seconds left to play.

After the Cougars (16-3, 10-2) were unable to get anything to go their next possession, Mathiowetz was fouled and sank a pair of bonus free throws for a 74-67 lead with 6.7 seconds left.

Staff photo by Travis Rosenau Sleepy Eye St. Marys’ Kylie Pelzel (1) puts up a shot while guarded by Cedar Mountain’s Marlie Wildt (20) during a Tomahawk Division girls basketball game on Tuesday afternoon at Cedar Mountain High School in Morgan.

“I think I’ve been in every game possible throughout my career,” Mathiowetz said. “I know what to expect each and every game. Those close games I’ve been through, you just to kind of have to weather the storm. Obviously, I’m a very competitive person, so just keeping that fire inside me and wanting to go out and win is kind of what drives me to be successful.”

Aubrey Steffl, who finished with 15 points, 10 assists, five rebounds and five steals, ended up hitting a 3 just before the buzzer, but that was the last shot the Cougars could get off as the Knights hung on.

Kendra Erickson led the Cougars on the night with 18 points, six rebounds, four assists and two steals, while Marlie Wildt put up 13 points and seven rebounds and Kendra Lueck had 9 points, five rebounds, three assists and three steals. Grace Hamre added 10 points for the Cougars.

The Knights also saw Olivia Schieffert finish with 14 points, nine assists and five rebounds, while Sidney Tauer had 4 points.

Ella Freitag had a nice game for the Cougars with some clutch plays as well, finishing with 5 points and three rebounds.

Staff photo by Travis Rosenau Cedar Mountain’s Grace Hamre drives to the hoop while guarded by Sleepy Eye St. Mary’s Audra Hoffmann in a Tomahawk Division girls basketball game on Tuesday at Cedar Mountain High School in Morgan.

Trailing 50-37 early in the second half, Erickson sank a 3 to make it a 10-point game and Lueck followed with a free throw to have it within single-digits again. The Cougars got within 6 after that twice, but the Knights got a 3 from Mathiowetz and a free throw from Brynne Ibberson with around six minutes left to play to lead 62-51.

Cedar Mountain continued to battle, getting a bucket inside and a 3 both from Freitag to trail 62-56. Erickson the scored inside to make it a 4-point game.

Moments later, Freitag had an assist to Wildt inside to have her team down 63-60. After Wildt scored in the paint to bring Cedar Mountain within a point, 65-64, Lueck had a steal that led to a foul and a made free throw to tie the game at 65-all with 2:11 left to play.

“I think with this, it just kind of helps prove that, even to the girls, that we can play with anybody,” Cougars head coach Brook Christensen said. “And tonight, the little things that we were kind of talking about coming into this game, doing the little things like hustling for rebounds, hustling for those loose balls, and I think I can maybe count on my hand twice for the times we didn’t make that happen.

“For us, it’s the defensive part of it and then doing those little things right is what’s going to make us a real good basketball team down the stretch. I give props to the girls, they’re all playing good tonight and it’s nice to have four options to score at times and I think we got that. I think teams are starting to realize that they can’t just key on Aubrey and they can’t key on Kendra Erickson, so I’m excited to see what we’ve got going down the stretch.”

Staff photo by Travis Rosenau Cedar Mountain’s Marley Wildt readies to shoot a free throw during the first half of a Tomahawk Division girls basketball game against Sleepy Eye St. Mary’s on Tuesday afternoon at Cedar Mountain High School in Morgan.

Despite the Cougars getting a rush of adrenaline following the game-tying free throw late, Mathiowetz calmly sank consecutive shots, a 3 and a mid-range jumper, to put her team back up 70-65. Erickson answered inside on the other end, and while Mathiowetz missed a contested jumper with the shot clock about to expire, the miss was cleaned up nicely by Hoffmann with a putback.

“We knew it was going to be a battle,” Knights head coach Bruce Woitas said. “They’ve had a great year so far, the only other [Tomahawk] loss was to us, and I think they lost to Windom, so they’ve been playing really good basketball. I think we beat them by 20 the first time we played them before Christmas, but we knew it was going to be a battle.

“For us, it was kind of like the conference championship was on the line for us, so we kind of should have that locked up in some regard with them having two losses now in the conference and us still none.”

Christensen said that he was happy to see such a balanced effort from his team and a much better turnaround from the previous game between the two teams, a 69-49 win for St. Mary’s in Sleepy Eye on Dec. 22, 2025.

“Our depth is getting there and we’re able to trust girls coming in to play the game when we need them,” Christensen said. “Our biggest thing was to start out fast and not get behind like we did that last game. I think they went on some big runs, 15-0 runs, and we didn’t let that happen here.

“There was one point where it was, like, ‘Oh, shoot, here we go again.’ But the biggest thing is going into this game and making sure that we start fast and continue playing through that and I thought we really did a good job with that tonight.”

The Knights took an early 17-6 lead after back-to-back buckets by Mathiowetz, but the Cougars stayed tough and cut their deficit to 23-17 after a 3 by Steffl. Mathiowetz had a free throw after that, however, to start a 7-0 Knights run. Following the free throw, Kylie Pelzel scored inside before Mathiowetz and Schieffert both knocked down jumpers for a 30-17 lead.

The Cougars and Knights continued trading buckets after that until Erickson connected on a late 3 before the end of the half to have the Cougars down 40-32 at halftime.

“It was a good game, especially coming off of Saturday’s loss against a very good team,” Woitas said. “We kind of needed that, we played some good competition and had a good competitive game. A few times we had to recheck our composure ourselves a little bit because we got a little bit frustrated and we can’t do that. We’ve got to get used to this type of a game and we’re going see a few more of these games down the stretch yet and obviously when we get to playoffs.”

Mathiowetz complimented the Cougars on their play and said she was happy with her team’s ability to battle through adversity.

“They’re a really solid team and if they shoot like they did tonight, they’re going to be able to beat a lot of teams,” Mathiowetz said. “Just knowing that it took a little bit more grit than it usually does for us to win tonight, so just knowing that we can kind of get through adversity with that and kind of weather the storm [is key].”

Cedar Mountain and St. Mary’s both have Tomahawk Division games on Thursday night as the Cougars travel to New Ulm Cathedral and the Knights host Lester Prairie.