NORTH ROBINSON — Down eight points in the second period, Wynford coach Amy Taylor-Sheldon told her team to take chances defensively.
The gamble paid off handsomely.
The Royals outscored Colonel Crawford, 13-5, the rest of the half to tie the game at the break, before building a second-half lead. From there, they held off a late Eagles’ charge to win, 46-43, in a Northern 10 Athletic Conference game at Mac Morrison Gymnasium.
Taylor-Sheldon said that her confident defense was the difference for her team.
“Defensively, we had to be aggressive and we had to take chances and I felt that we did some good things,” Taylor-Sheldon said. “Obviously we gave up a lot of offensive rebounds, which isn’t what we wanted. But we made free throws and took care of the ball.”
Wynford (11-5, 8-4 N10) did a lot of trapping on the Colonel Crawford (12-4, 8-4) guards and the Eagles failed to handle the pressure for most of the second half.
“When we have Averi McMillan on the top of our press, usually a lot of good things happen,” Taylor-Sheldon said. “We wanted to take advantage of that as much as we could. I felt like we tried to capitalize on that as much as we could.”
Colonel Crawford coach Kyle Fenner felt that her team didn’t take advantage of its opportunities. The Eagles made just four of 14 free throws in the game, while Wynford hit 10 of 12.
“We lost the game because we didn’t make free throws and committed too many turnovers,” Fenner said. “There it is in a nutshell. We played hard. We didn’t make free throws and we turned the ball over.”
“We’ve been in a couple of games where we didn’t finish it at the foul line and we knew we were going to have more opportunities and, when it comes, you need to be able to do that,” Taylor-Sheldon said.
Wynford led, 39-33, with 4:50 left in the game on a huge three-point play by Lyndie Williams before the Eagles made their charge.
Ally Hocker scored on a put-back and Allison Teglovic drained a 3-point shot to cut the Royals’ lead to 39-38 with 3:12 left.
After Savannah Tobias scored and Rylee Alspach hit a free throw to increase the lead back to four, the two teams exchanged baskets, then Risner hit a 3 to cut the lead to 44-43 with 29 seconds left in the game.
Williams hit two huge free throws to increase the lead to three with 14.2 seconds left.
Crawford got two looks in the final second, including a Teglovic 3 at the buzzer that bounced off the rim twice before falling off.
“In the first half, when we got down, we battled back and tied the game at halftime,” Taylor-Sheldon said. “We told the kids we have to have perfect execution on offense to get the looks we want.”
Fenner said that her team didn’t get the ball to Teglovic as much as she wanted.
“We have to toughen up and handle the ball,” Fenner said. “We knew the trap was coming and we wanted to get the ball in the middle of the floor. We didn’t trigger and throw the ball. We knew they were going to trap us off missed shots and we didn’t take care of the ball.”
Three Wynford players scored in double-figures. Williams and Alspach each scored 11 and McMillan added 10.
Risner led Colonel Crawford with 16 points.
“We played assertive without being aggressive,” Taylor-Sheldon said. “We fouled the shooter a couple of times trying to block shots, but we were trying to make something happen.
“Player-for-player, everyone made their contribution. And we needed that for us to win,” she added.
Col. Crawford won the junior varsity game, 41-39. Freshmen Mallory Plesac and Brailey Horner each scored 10 points for the Eagles. Alexis Stevely scored 12 for Wynford.
Box score
Wynford 10 13 9 13 — 46
Colonel Crawford 16 7 5 15 — 43
Wynford (11-5, 8-4 N10): Shots 17-35; 3-pt. shots 2-7 (Kaylee Smith, Savannah Tobias); Free throws 10-12; Rebounds 12; Turnovers 13. Scoring: Kylee Smith 1 0 3, Rylee Alspach 4 3 11, Mia Leuthold 1 0 2, Savannah Tobias 3 2 9, Lyndie Williams 4 3 11, Averi McMillan 4 2 10.
Colonel Crawford (12-4, 8-4 N10): Shots 17-44; 3-pt. shots 5-16 (Kaylyn Risner 2, Theresa Dzugan, Hannah Plesac, Allison Teglovic); Free throws 4-14; Rebounds 27; Turnovers 18. Scoring: Theresa Dzugan 1 0 3, MaKenna Treisch 1 0 2, Ally Hocker 1 0 2, Jenna Maddy 3 0 6, Hannah Plesac 2 0 5, Kaylyn Risner 6 3 17, Allison Teglovic 3 1 8.
JV: Colonel Crawford 41-39.