Photo by Jake McNeill: Marshall guard Reese Drake (2) prepares to attempt a go-ahead free throw with two seconds remaining in the Marshall girls basketball team’s 50-48 win over Harrisburg, S.D. on Monday night.

MARSHALL — With the game on the line and two seconds remaining on the clock, Reese Drake stepped up to the charity stripe and knocked down a pair of go-ahead free throws to give the Marshall girls basketball team a 50-48 win over Harrisburg, S.D. on Monday night.

“We fought until the end so I knew I just had to take my time, focus up and put it in [the basket],” Drake said when asked about her thoughts as she headed to the free-throw line.

Marshall held a 2-point lead in the final minute. With the clock winding down, Harrisburg attempted a game-tying shot. The visiting Tigers missed but got the offensive rebound and instead attempted a deep 3-pointer for the lead. When that also missed, Harrisburg got another offensive rebound and attempted a putback layup but Morgan Bjella came up clutch by swatting the would-be tying shot to the ground past the baseline. The block was her second of the game.

“We knew we needed a stop. I didn’t think it would come in that way with a blocked shot but yeah, that was a big play for us,” Marshall head coach Dan Westby said. “We got up by [13] there in the second half and felt like we were doing some good things and then we kind of stopped attacking the basket. Harrisburg, they never got rattled. They just kept playing and boy, that was a hard-fought high school basketball game. I mean, 84 feet for both teams the whole game.”

After the inbound, Sadie Mehrman caught a pass on the wing and drove inside and this time knocked down the driving layup to tie up the game at 48-48. With the shot clock out of play, Marshall sped down the court before calling a timeout. Westby said the team was looking to get the ball to Bjella on the inside when they talked in the huddle but Harrisburg’s tenacious defense disrupted those plans.

Marshall inbounded the ball to Reese Drake, who swung it along the arc to Paige Gillingham. When Gillingham tried to pass it back to the top of the key, a Harrisburg defender deflected the ball into the backcourt. Drake raced to the ball to prevent an easy transition layup for the lead for Harrisburg. She gathered the ball with six seconds remaining and sprinted down the court. Overtime seemed imminent until a Harrisburg defender was called for a foul, sending Drake to the line for 1-and-1.

Drake knocked down the first for the lead and, after a timeout was called, knocked down the second to give Marshall some breathing room. Harrisburg had time for one half-court heave but the shot was no good, sending home fans home happy.

Reese Drake finished the game with 16 points for the Tigers on 13 attempts from the field. She also shot a perfect 5-of-5 from the free-throw line and tied Reese Graven with a team-high assists. Drake turned the ball over just once.

Taleigha Bigler also made an impact in the box score for Marshall, finishing second on the team with 13 points. She also knocked down a pair of 3-pointers, tying her with Mehrman for a game-high.

Marshall led 41-28 when a 9-2 run by Harrisburg put the visiting Tigers back within striking distance. A second-chance layup by Paige Gillingham and a Harrisburg traveling violation gave Marshall the opportunity to bring its lead back to 10. Yet Harrisburg forced a jump ball on the defensive end, knocked down a free throw, and then stole the Marshall inbound to set up Lawrenson’s second-chance layup to cut Marshall’s lead to 5 points, 45-40. Reese Drake immediately responded with a contested transition layup to keep Marshall up by three possessions.

Marshall started the game showing no feat of drawing contact in the paint. Reese Drake and Bjella each converted an and-1 layup to account for two of Marshall’s first three baskets. In between, a Graven steal led to another Drake layup.

While the home-team Tigers didn’t shy away from contact early, the visiting Tigers were consistently quick to respond. Harrisburg matched each of the Marshall and-1s with a 3-pointer from beyond the arc and responded to Drake’s layup with a 2-pointer of their own. Makinley Lawrenson hit Harrisburg’s second layup of the game before Marshall caught fire.

Graven started the Marshall run by driving into the paint to draw in the defense and kicking the ball out to Drake, who knocked down the corner 3 for an 11-10 Marshall lead. Halla Casavan and Graven each hit a layup and Bigler knocked down a free throw for 8 unanswered Marshall points and a 15-10 lead. Harrisburg finally ended the run by making a layup after getting three offensive rebounds in a possession.

The offensive glass was the one aspect of the game in which Marshall struggled. While Marshall finished with 19 defensive rebounds to Harrisburg’s 18, they had just nine offensive boards while Harrisburg had 17. Bjella’s three offensive boards were a team-high and her five total rebounds tied Reese Drake and Gillingham for a team-high.

Mehrman grabbed five offensive boards for Harrisburg, finishing second in the game with eight total rebounds. Lawrenson and Flanagan each had four offensive rebounds with Flanagan grabbing a game-high nine total rebounds.

“Give them a lot of credit because when a shot went up, they were going to the basket. We talked about the fact that we were just doing such a poor job of making contact with people and keeping people away from the basket, we just never did it,” Westby said. “Even in the second half, we talked a lot about how we’d given up 11 offensive rebounds in the first half and you just can’t do that, especially against a good team like this.”

A 3-pointer cut Marshall’s lead down to 1 point, forcing Marshall to call a timeout, but Bigler hit a layup out of the timeout to keep the visitors at arm’s length.

A few possessions later, Bigler took a hard foul while driving for a layup, hitting her head on the hardwood. She was taken out of the game but returned in the second half. Kennedy Drake made one of two free throws in her stead to help Marshall carry a 20-17 lead into the locker room.

Mehrman knocked down a 3-pointer on Harrisburg’s second possession of the second half to tie up the game and Addy Wagner made one of her free throws after being fouled on a layup to give Harrisburg a 21-20 advantage, its first lead since 10-8.

Still, Marshall didn’t stay down for long. Bjella recovered a long offensive rebound from a Bigler 3-point attempt to set up a go-ahead layup for Graven. Kennedy Drake knocked down a corner 3 on the next possession to put Marshall up by 4 points and Bigler converted another bucket to force a Harrisburg timeout with Marshall holding a 27-21 lead four minutes into the half.

The timeout did nothing to slow Marshall’s momentum. Casavan hit a close-range shot and Bigler knocked down a 3-pointer to extend the Marshall lead to 11 points before Lawrenson finally ended the 12-0 Marshall run with a 3-pointer of her own.

Marshall went on to extend its lead to 36-24 before Harrisburg strung some points together to cut Marshall’s lead back to 8 points, prompting a Marshall timeout. Casavan hit a layup immediately out of the timeout to bring the Marshall lead back to double digits. Casavan finished the game with 6 points and four rebounds.

Since losing on the road to No. 3 Alexandria in its season-opener, the Marshall girls basketball team has won six consecutive games. Three of those wins came against teams ranked top 20 in Class 3A and only two have come against teams with sub.500 records.

“It feels really nice to get these wins. We’re a very unselfish team. We don’t care who gets the points, we all just move the ball around and find that open person,” Reese Drake said of the team’s recent success.

Marshall (6-1) will look to keep the ball rolling when it goes across the road to Southwest Minnesota State University for a matchup against the 6-1 Jackson County Central Huskies on Wednesday, Dec. 27 at 8 p.m. It’ll be the first of two consecutive games for the Tigers at the SMSU R/A Facility as they’ll take on Hamlin, S.D. on Thursday, Dec. 28 as well.

“Winning always feels better than losing, no doubt about it. Winning is important, certainly, but the best thing we can take away from this is that we should have a good feel for what it means to compete against good teams. That’s the best thing we can take away,” Westby said.