Pine City hosted Foley last night in an important section matchup.
Pine City, who came into this game was ranked 5th in section 6AA battled against Foley who was ranked 2nd. Both teams knew what was at stake coming into this game. For Pine City a win meant a chance a breaking into the top 4, for Foley they'd give themselves a chance at taking over the #1 spot held by Albany.
Pine City jumped out to a 13-9 lead, and it looked as if they were going to be able to control the game and hold onto the lead. But Foley stormed back and scored 17 unanswered points and now lead 26-13. The Dragons saw their momentum quite literally stolen from them. Foley stole the ball from the Dragons 10 times in the 1st half. As the Falcons controlled the game on defense, forcing Pine City into mistakes and those lead to turnovers. Their offense continued to put points on the board and lead 31-21 at half. A game that started with so much promise for the Dragons, now put the team on their heels.
The start of the 2nd half was much of the same, Foley suffocating on defense and frustrating Pine City which lead to more turnovers. But the Dragons soon found some rhythm on offense, Karly Jusczak started to not only find lanes to the basket but create her own. As the 2nd half progressed so did the intensity. Every rebound had a little extra hard pull of the ball out of the defenders hand, and getting to the basket was like driving on a one lane freeway during rush hour. Foley would grab 7 more steals in the half to water down any kind of comeback for Pine City. The Falcons built up a 20 point lead and with under 3 minutes left the Dragons just didn't have time to overcome. Foley came away with the win 53-37.
For Pine City it's the 3rd loss in 4 games and now sit at 17-6 on the season and are #6 in the section. They'll travel to Ogilvie on Thursday to try and finish undefeated in conference play. Foley with the win improves to 16-5 on the season and sits 12 points behind Albany in the QRF rankings. They will have a chance this Thursday to try and dethrone Albany.
Scoring:
Pine City
Karly Jusczak 15
Kloey Lind 10
Ella Sell 6
Carissa Nascene and Summer Thieman 3
Foley
Ella Duevel 12
Brooke Beier 11
Alaina Hageman 10
Piper Osborne 6
Macy Zawacki and Marley Wheeler 5
Makayla Dietl 4
Photo Credit: Four Seasons Photography
