Marshall overcomes halftime deficit for win over Brandon Valley

Photo by Jake McNeill: Marshall guard Reese Drake (right) attempts a layup while fighting through contact during the second half of a prep girls basketball game against South Dakota Class AA No. 2 Brandon Valley on Tuesday night. The top-ranked Tigers overcame a halftime deficit to take down the Lynx behind Drake's 33 points.
MARSHALL — The strong stretch of schedule continued for the top-ranked Marshall girls basketball team on Tuesday night. Just a few days after suffering its first loss of the season against No. 5 Orono on Saturday, the Tigers hosted South Dakota Class AA No. 2 Brandon Valley. The Tigers faced a slight deficit heading into halftime, marking just their third time this season trailing at the halfway point, but rallied in the second half for a 77-73 victory behind 33 points from Reese Drake and 22 from Taleigha Bigler.
“It’s always good to play quality teams, and we always say steel sharpens steel,” Marshall head coach Dan Westby said. “It’s not ideal in the fact that we had to play them back to back, you’d like to have a little bit of time to get ready, but it’s good for us. I mean, if we could do this a little bit more often, I think our team would benefit.”
Drake finished the game shooting 11 of 14 from the field and 6 of 9 from the charity stripe, while Bigler shot 5 of 14 from the field and 10 of 11 from the free-throw line. The two were also the team’s leading distributors, Bigler recording seven assists with two turnovers and Drake with four assists and four turnovers.
“They’re our two most experienced players, so at the end when we had a small lead, it was really important, we felt, to have the ball in their hands,” Westby said. “I think that’s going to be the case from here on out. Those kids have been there a lot, so they should be comfortable being in that situation.”
After heading into halftime with a 38-33 lead, the Lynx maintained a narrow edgeto start the second half until Bigler it a pair of free throws and Gillingham came away with a steal to set up Drake with a 3-pointer on the wing to tie the game up at 44-44.
Alyvia Padgett answered Marshall’s rally with a go-ahead and-1 for the Lynx but Bigler stepped up with back-to-back 3-pointers to give Marshall its first lead since the first half with 10 minutes remaining. Still, another and-1 from Padgett knotted up the score once again at 50-50.
The teams traded baskets again and Salter then gave Brandon Valley the lead back. Yet, Avery Fahl hit a clutch corner 3 to put Marshall on top and Drake knocked down a midrange jumper to bring Marshall’s lead to 57-54 with seven minutes left on the clock.
Marshall started to pull away from there. Reese Drake hit a 3 on the wing off a dime from Bigler. Drake then hit a layup and knocked down a pair of free throws, and an Avery Schneekloth bank shot brought Marshall’s lead to double digits, 66-55, with under five minutes remaining.
Still, the Lynx refused to go away. Brandon Valley went on a 13-3 run to come back within a point in the final minute. A pair of free throws from Bigler brought Marshall’s lead back up to 3 points, 71-68, and Fahl salvaged a jump ball on the defensive end after a Brandon Valley miss to keep Marshall in control.
Amanda Lease went to the free-throw line for Brandon Valley with 33 seconds left, but missed the front end of a 1-and-1. The Lynx intentionally fouled Bigler and she iced the game, making both of her two free throws to extend Marshall’s lead to 5 points.
Marshall and Brandon Valley traded free throws from there. A fadeaway 3 from Ava Kellenberger cut Marshall’s lead to 2 points with 4.7 seconds remaining but, with Marshall in the double bonus, there was no time for the Lynx to make a comeback.
Brandon Valley fields a strong team and took advantage of that on the glass. The Lynx grabbed 12 offensive rebounds to Marshall’s eight and finished with a 38-23 overall rebounding advantage.
“It was a tough, physical game and they’ve got, as you mentioned, a couple kids that are big and strong,” Westby said. “We just told our kids that we had to do a better job of holding our ground. We just allowed them to push us under the basket and we can’t do that.”
Gracie Salter in particular led the Lynx’s rebounding efforts with 15 total and seven offensive rebounds, while Bigler’s nine total rebounds were a team-high for Marshall and her two offensive boards tied her with Fahl for a team-high.
Drake carried the Marshall offense early in the first half. She scored 12 of Marshall’s first 15 points with her ability to penetrate the paint and draw contact, and she set up the other 3 points by grabbing a defensive rebound and then pushing the ball to Fahl in the corner in transition. Still, Marshall led just 15-14 when she subbed out to take a breather.
Drake’s free throw before she subbed out marked the start of a 12-0 run for the Tigers. With Drake on the bench, Fahl grabbed an offensive rebound and kicked it out to Bigler for a 3, giving Marshall its first multi-possession lead.
Marshall held a stark advantage from beyond the arc, shooting 11 of 22 compared to 4 of 15 for Brandon Valley. Drake knocked down five of her six attempts from 3-point range while Bigler went 4 of 7.
Bigler started to go on a heater from there. She found Schneekloth on a fast break to assist her on a layup, and then came away with a steal, drew contact and knocked down a pair of free throws to bring Marshall’s lead up to 22-14.
Drake then intercepted a pass near midcourt and took it to the hole for an easy bucket, and Fahl converted a layup to cap off Marshall’s run with a 26-14 lead.
Marshall finished with a 12-23 advantage in the turnover battle, led by seven steals from Bigler and another four from Drake.
As the half progressed, however, the Lynx’s defense wore on Marshall. Brandon Valley forced some passing turnovers out of the Tigers, which they converted into easy points.
After trailing by as many as 13, the Lynx went on a 15-5 run to whittle Marshall’s lead down to one possession before a Fahl layup off a baseline inbound made the score 33-29 with five-and-a-half to play before the break.
The Lynx finally retired the game when Salter knocked down a close-range jumper to make the score 33-33 with four minutes remaining.
“I think Brandon Valley found a couple of plays that really worked for them. We had a hard time taking away the baseline drive and they stuck with it,” Westby said. “It have us problems and we talked about that at halftime, that we needed to shore that up and we thought we were better in the second half.”
The Marshall defense forced the Lynx to use the full shot clock on their next trip down the court, but Padgett found a way to get to the basket for a layup as the seconds wound down.
A deep straightaway 3-pointer from Madison Geiver gave the Lynx their largest lead of the half, 38-33, with two minutes to play. They carried that same margin into the locker room, led by 12 points fro Salter and another 11 from Kellenburg. The two finished with 16 and 17 points respectively while Padgett led the team with 22 points at the end of the game.
The bounce-back victory improves Marshall’s record to 21-1 on the season. They’ll next take on St. Peter (11-8) on Friday at 7:15 p.m. for the front end of a two-game road trip before closing out the regular season with a two-game homestand. Marshall ran away with a 77-38 win the last time they took on St. Peter on Jan. 7, but the Tigers dropped each of their four matchups against the Saints last season.