Cards lock it down against Esko

A fast start to the second half allowed the Cromwell-Wright girls basketball team to pull away to a 64-51 road win over Esko on Monday night in Esko.

"We locked them down at the start of the second half on defense," said Cardinals head coach Jeff Gronner. "We got off to a big run, and that was enough to get us a win against a tough team on the road."

With Cromwell-Wright leading 34-30 at halftime, the Cards started the second half on an 18-4 run as Esko struggled to get the ball to drop.

"The slow start was a combination of their defense and us just missing some easy shots," said Esko coach Sue Northey. "We missed at least six shots inside. We had our chances, but then Cromwell started cleaning up on the boards and we gave them too many second and third chances to score."

While Cromwell-Wright easily won the rebounding edge, Esko was nearly perfect from the free throw line, going 16-for-17 from the charity stripe.

"Last week we went 3-for-10 and struggled from the line," recalled Northey. "As a team, we have four objectives we try to reach in every game, and this season free throws have been our nemesis, so it was nice to see us handle that part of the game better."

Both teams featured 19-point scorers in the game, with Isabella Anderson doing the honors for the Cards and Clara Swanson doing the same for Esko.

"Swanson is very talented," Gronner said. "We put Remington Olesiak on her in the second half and she did a good job of slowing her down a little bit."

Key for the Cards was the scoring balance, as a total of four players were in double-digit scoring: including Anderson, Siiena Anderson and Shannon Lund with 12 points each and Olesiak with 11.

"All five of our starters average between 9 and 14 points a game," Gronner said. "Almost every night we have four players in double digits, and that is nice because we don't have to rely on just one person to score the bulk of our points. That makes us a little harder to defend."

The loss for Esko was a microcosm of their season.

"We can play with better teams for short periods of time, but we have to do everything right all the time in order to beat those teams," Northey said. "We have to have everyone do their job because we just don't score enough points to keep up with teams when they start scoring in bunches."

Rounding out the scoring for the Cards were Bryanna Foster with 5 points, Emelia Dahl with 3 points, and Isabella Nyberg with 2.

Joining Swanson in the scoring column for Esko were Maya Johnson and Layla Peterson with 8 points each, Celia Preiner with 7, Kaitlyn McConnell with 6, and Ava Marline with 3.

With the win, the Cardinals improved to 14-2 on the season, while Esko's record drops to 8-12 following the loss.