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.
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