The Carroll Tigers showed a lot of resolve on Friday night as they struggled early on the defensive end which hindered their offense and they found themselves behind the 3
rd ranked Ballard Bombers in a battle of number 2 vs number 3. Carroll didn’t want to get beat inside and the Ballard guards came out shooting the ball well. As all good teams do the Tigers adjusted at halftime and rallied in the 4
th quarter to take the lead late on a bucket by Kaleb Booth. The Bombers hit a shot to tie the game and then had a chance to win it but the shot didn’t go and the game went to overtime.
Glidden Ralston looked sharp in garnering their 2
nd win of the season. The Wildcats for a second straight game started quickly this time getting out 8-0 behind 3’s from Tiela Janssen and Paige Klocke. Much like the game Tuesday against CAM Anita the Wildcats then gave up a run to fall behind. They trailed 10-8 late in the 1
st quarter but unlike Tuesday the Wildcats had an answer tonight. They went back ahead 11-10 at the end of the 1
st quarter and after falling behind 15-14 got three straight 3’s to go up for good at 23-15. Tiela Janssen hit a couple of those 3’s as the Wildcats extended the lead to 29-16 and led at the half 29-18.
rd quarter and into the 4
th quarter allowed AC-GC to pull away from the Wildcats and drop them to 2-5 on the season. Glidden Ralston looked good into the 3
rd quarter and found themselves down 38-36 but the Chargers closed the quarter on a 26-9 run and then extended the lead early in the 4
th quarter. Their lead would grow to 71-47 midway through the 4
th quarter.
Kyle Olberding hit maybe the shot of the year in the 2
nd quarter. The Wildcats were down 25-19 and the ball was bounding out of bounds in the right corner. Olberding hustled the ball down and came to a jump stop in the corner. He began to fall out of bounds when he flipped the ball up in the air under hand with his back to the basket. It appeared he was trying to throw the ball towards the lane or basket. The ball sailed through the air and swished through the hoop to cut it to 25-22. That basket gave Glidden Ralston some momentum and they would pull within 1 point twice before the halftime. They were down 36-31 at
It wasn’t easy but the 2nd ranked Carroll Tigers improved to 5-0 overall and 4-0 in the Raccoon River Conference setting up a big matchup with 3rd ranked Ballard in Huxley on Friday. The Tigers fell down out of the gate but only 4-2, then answered with a 15-0 run to lead 17-4. The offense was moving the ball quick to find shots in the lane as Winterset was taking away the three in their zone defense. Carroll led 19-8 at the end of the 1st quarter and looked to be in control.
Some early turnovers in the 2nd quarter and Winterset got a couple shots to fall and gained some momentum. The Tigers saw their lead shrink to 24-20 late in the quarter but Tory Feldman who played with a ton of energy led a spark and helped Carroll have a 29-23 lead at half. It could have been 9 at the break but Levi Gurwell made a 3 from the left corner at the horn.
The Tigers suffered a couple of blows on Tuesday as they dropped a conference home game to fall to 3-3 overall and 1-3 in the Raccoon River Conference and they lost Ella Collison their leading scorer and rebounder early in the game to an injury.
Carroll had tied the game at 4 and 8 before Collison left the game and Winterset began to take control. The Huskies closed the quarter on a 6-0 run and led 14-8 heading into quarter two. Things didn’t get better for Carroll. They struggled on the offensive end to get good looks against the zone defense and Winterset took over the backboards on both ends of the floor. Jena Young went off for the Huskies in the 1