Pine City Holds on to Defeat Cloquet

The Lady Dragons hosted Cloquet on Tuesday night.

The Dragons played their third team in Class AAA or higher with the matchup. They were looking to get back over .500 on the season and head into Christmas break on a high note.

It wasn't the best of starts for either team, fouls piled up early on for Cloquet. Both defenses played hard and made it difficult to find any decent shots. Pine City was the first to break through, and they were able to pile up a double digit lead. But the Lumberjacks fought back and kept themselves in the game. The later in the half we got the more fouls started to pile up and both teams were in trouble. The Dragons did a good job of making their free throws which helped them keep their lead. They would go into the half up 28-16.

The 2nd half saw the heat turned up to an 11. And Cloquet swung momentum in their favor early on. The Lumberjacks turned up the pressure defensively and the offense rewarded that effort. But Pine City wasn't done, they found some success on offense as well and held onto their lead. But as the half wore along the Lumberjacks continued to chip away at their deficit. And their offense was finding the bucket on every shot it seemed. As they continued to stay hot, the Dragons offense struggled to find the success they once had and saw more empty possessions than they would've liked. Cloquet had now shrunk the lead to only a couple of possessions, the one good thing for PC was the fouls once again piled up for Cloquet. So the Dragons had plenty of chances to put the game away from the free throw line, but just couldn't find the bottom of the basket. This obviously kept Cloquet close and now they had brought the score within 2. The Dragons continued to draw fouls and send themselves to the charity stripe. While they struggled they made enough of the free throws to keep hold of the lead. Then under a minute left Cloquet hit a big three to cut the lead to 1. The Dragons hit one of their two free throws to bring it back to two. A final timeout was called by Cloquet to set up a game winner. But it was the Dragons defense that stepped up and made the game winning play after the inbound. The pass up the court was tipped and stolen away and the clock hit zero and Pine City held on for a 54-52 win.

With the win they move back to 4-3 on the season, they'll have a break until they play at the St. Cloud Cathedral holiday tournament on the 29th and 30th.

Scoring

Pine City:

Mallory Clepper 18 points, 11 rebounds, 2 steals, 1 block

Brooke Boland 15 points, 8 rebounds, 4 steals

Vivian Lahti 9 points, 7 rebounds, 2 steals

Maggie Judd 6 points, 2 rebounds, 1 steal

Paige Gray 3 points, 2 rebounds, 1 steal

Rhetta Ganote 2 points, 2 rebounds

Kate Unverzagt 1 point, 3 rebounds, 2 steals