Lady Dragons Overcome Slow Start, Come Back to Win Over Melrose

Pine City hosted Melrose on Thursday night.

The Lady Dragons were able to host a playoff game on Thursday and no doubt the energy was high. They were also looking to get a sour taste out of their mouths from losing at home on Senior night. They came into the playoffs as the 5 seed but Melrose was a very good 12 seed.

Neither team got out to a bad start but both were certainly playing through some early nerves. The Lady Dutchmen got out to the early lead but Pine City was wasn't far behind. The Dragons were playing from behind and could feel momentum quickly shifting all the way to Melrose. This forced them into a plethora of mistakes, mistakes this team isn't known for making. They were forcing passes into closed off lanes, not looking in passes, quite simply not taking care of the ball. And their defense felt the pressure, with the offense struggling they spent alot of time guarding the basket. This lead to Melrose finding plenty of wide open shots and hitting them. Despite all of this the Dragons were still in the game and as the 1st half played on their defense started to gain some traction. They able to come up with stops and rebounds that kept Melrose off the board. Their offense couldn't find the same groove but still made a few buckets. It seemed like they were doing enough to go into half trailing by only a few possessions. But the turnovers reared their ugly head again, and Melrose hit a few big three's to take a 31-21 halftime lead.

The Dragons didn't look like themselves in the 1st half, they were trying to get all the points back in one, rushing things and not playing sound defense. The confidence seemed lost. But they came out to begin the 2nd half with a different mentality. They relaxed, understood it's going to take time to overcome the deficit and just got back to simply playing their style of basketball. They spent much of the 2nd half trailing but looked like themselves, and they were getting into position to take the lead. With under 7 minutes to go, they had finally taken the lead, but it wasn't going to be easy to keep it and they kept battling. They continued to pull momentum back, their defense was making all sorts of stops by just playing their style of ball. While Melrose fought back and kept it close Pine City continued to hold onto the lead. As the game neared the end, Melrose had to start fouling and sending the Dragons to the free throw line. Pine City hit on about 50% of them, enough to keep the lead. Melrose continued to put up shots and hitting some of them to keep the game within reach. But the last four free throws Pine City shot they made and their defense did its job. As the buzzer sounded the Dragons had completed the comeback and beat Melrose 60-56 to advance to the section quarterfinals!

While not their best game, the resiliency and heart they showed was palpable. Proving they can be THE team to beat in the playoffs.

They'll play Legacy Christian Academy on Saturday at St. Bens, a rematch of early in the season when they lost by 1.

Scoring

Pine City:

Mallory Clepper 18 8 rebounds, 3 blocks, 3 steals

Paige Gray 10 points

Kate Unverzagt 10 points, 3 rebounds, 2 steals, 1 block

Brooke Boland 8 points, 9 rebounds, 1 steal

Maggie Judd 6 points, 5 rebounds

Reyah Johnson 6 points, 1 rebound

Vivian Lahti 2 points, 5 rebounds, 3 steals