BEMIDJI -- When halftime hit for the Bemidji High School girls basketball team, head coach Steve Schreiber had a question for them.
“We went into the locker room and I said, ‘You know what, ladies, we’re not doing anything we practiced. So you tell me what we have to do better.’”
The response? A dominant second half that turned a one-point game by the break into a comfortable 77-55 win over Detroit Lakes from the BHS Gymnasium on Tuesday.
“They said, ‘We need to communicate better and we need to cover gaps better.’ I thought it was really mature of them, especially the upperclassmen,” Schreiber said of the halftime talk. “They’re the ones that fixed the problem. I just let them talk it out… We came back out and communicated really well, we covered gaps really well.”
Bemidji (3-5) gunned out to a 10-2 lead behind five point from Kennedy Mills, who capped the opening run with a takeaway turned layup. The full-court defense allowed the surge to continue, as another BHS steal exchanged hands from Ali Beard to Sam Edlund to Katie Alto, making for a tic-tac-toe layup and a 20-11 advantage.
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But the Lakers (0-7) responded with an 11-3 run, working back into a 23-all tie when Lauryn Manning finished inside with a left-handed floater. The final five minutes of the half -- where the fast-paced chaos continued -- were played back and forth, ultimately resulting in a 34-33 edge for the Jacks.
“We knew we could score. We haven’t had problems scoring all year,” Schreiber said. “But giving up 32 points in the first half to a team that doesn’t score very well, that was a little disappointing. I think the girls felt it. We came out a lot better in the second half.”
After BHS came out from the locker room, they didn’t let the Lakers keep sticking around.
Bemidji scored the first eight out of the break, making for a 42-33 advantage. It soon expanded to 51-38, when Beard came up with back-to-back layups.
The lead was cut back to single digits when Breanna Price put in two straight scores, making for a 57-48 game. But again, the Lumberjacks took off in dominant fashion, answering back with 11 straight points from five different scorers.
“I felt like, the second half especially, we went all the way across the board,” Schreiber said. “I think that all 10 (players) did good things in the second half, whereas, we maybe only had two or three of those 10 do good things in the first half.”
Taylor Wade ran the run to 15-1 with an athletic layup late in the game, sending Bemidji well on its way to the 77-55 win.
Alto led all scorers with 20 points for BHS, while Mills tallied 15 and Ciara Cermak nine. For Detroit Lakes, Price finished with 16 and Manning added 11.
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“I felt like we were so much more locked in during the second half,” Schreiber said. “We have to be that kind of locked in to start the game on Thursday. We don’t have a half to play around.”
The Lumberjacks will return to action at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 21, in Thief River Falls for a rematch with the Prowlers.
Bemidji 77, Detroit Lakes 55
DL 33 22 -- 55
BHS 34 43 -- 77
Detroit Lakes scorers: Price 16, Manning 11, Bellanger 7, Block 6, Gunderson 5, Lunde 5, Brodsho 3, Cihak 2.
Bemidji scorers: Alto 20, Mills 15, Cermak 9, Edlund 7, Beard 6, Whelan 6, M. Flatness 5, Nicklason 5, Hildenbrand 2, Wade 2.
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