Ella Collison hit a pair of free throws with 40 seconds left to put the Tigers ahead 53-51. Carroll had trailed the entire game before rallying for the win. Carroll was down by 6 at the end of the 1
st quarter and trailed by 8 at half. The rally began early in the 4
th wen then Tigers scored 4 points in 4 seconds to cut the deficit to 41-36. The gap closed to 48-46 when Carroll scored with 2:35 to play. The Carroll defense needed to make another play and did causing a Wildcat turnover with 22 seconds left and Caroll up 2. Carroll was down by as many as 14 when the defense began to force turnovers helping to ignite the rally.
Carroll hung tough for the 1
st half but for the second time this season Ballard was able to pull away in the 2
nd half. Kennedy Lein helped spark the Tigers early as Carroll got up 5-2 and 6-4. Ballard grabbed their first lead at 8-6 and didn’t trail again but Carroll only trailed 14-11 after the 1
st quarter. Carroll pulled within 17-13 early in the 2
nd quarter and the lead remained around 6 points until Ballard scored just before half to take a 21-13 lead into the locker room. The Tigers struggled coming out in the 3
rd quarter and Ballard took advantage outscoring them 22-9 in the quarter to lead by 21 heading to the 4
Kuemper won for the 12
th time in the last 14 meetings with East Sac County but it wasn’t easy on Saturday afternoon. The Knights used two runs, the second coming late in the 3
rd quarter to open up a tight game and held on for the win.
Kuemper went on a 15-4 run in the 1
st half to build their largest lead of the game as 23-10 midway through the 2
nd quarter but East Sac wasn’t going away. The Raiders clamped down defensively and got a couple shots to fall starting with a jumper by Mary Bontrager. The Raiders got a 3 from Lauren Litterer and Maty Quirk who hadn’t scored in the 1
The Knights played well on the road in the 1
st half as they built a lead at the halftime. Brooklyn Gifford had another great shooting night hitting 6-3’s in the game helping Kuemper lead 17-6 after the 1
st quarter. Things continued to go well in the 2
nd quarter and Kuemper went into the haltime up by 6. They held onto the lead into the 4
th quarter before a few late turnovers allowed St Albert to take the lead and hold onto it late. The Knights did have a shot to win or tie it late but it didn’t fall.
The Carroll Tigers fought all night against the Raccoon River Conference’s number one team Ballard Bombers, but fell just short of knocking them off. The first quarter would be all Carroll as they would lead for most of the quarter and end with the 9-8 lead. The returning Ella Collison would lead the team with seven points in that quarter. Collison sustained a knee injury after Tuesday’s contest against Winterset, but was feeling great and was scoring great against the Bombers. Heading into the second quarter against the undefeated Bombers, the Tigers would keep the game close to them going into halftime trailing 19-17. Collison would lead all scorers with 10 first half points. Also scoring for the Tigers that half was Gabi Hammer with five points and Camryn Schable with two points.