Edmunds County Tribune -

Waubay/Summit escaped with a 50-48 home-court girls' varsity basketball win over Ipswich last Tuesday in Waubay. The non-conference loss was the first blemish on the Tigers' 2020-21 season record.

But it was close, according to coach Brian Hogie. The winning possession? "They hit two free throws to go up two," he explained. "We were down 48-40 with 2:00 minutes to go. We made a run, tying it up 48-48. Then they got the two free throws. We had a couple shots at the end, but just couldn't get them to fall."

The hosts had narrowly led, 14-13 after a quarter. But the visiting Tigers outscored them 9 to 5 in the second quarter to go ahead 22-19 at the half. But the Mustangs lived up to their nick-name, out-racing the Tigers 18-14 in the third quarter for a 37-36 lead and then added a razor-thin 13-12 scoring advantage in the final stanza.

Ipswich was led by Halle Heinz with 21 points, featuring a 9-10 free-throw performance. And Chesney Olivier nearly reached double-figures with her nine points in the game. Next was Lindsey Grabowska with six points, followed by Katie Bierman with five points, Hailey Bierman with four points and Bailey Pitz with the Tigers' lone trey.

Ipswich totaled a 16-54 floor-shot performance and included the lone trey. The Tiger shooters were also 15-24 at the charity stripe. The Tigers had 34 rebounds, led by Grawbowska with nine and Hailey Bierman with eight. Ipswich also protected the basketball rather well with only nine turnovers and helped inflate their hosts' turnover situation with 14 steals, led by Heinz and Chesney Olivier with five each. The Tiger girls also distributed 11 assists, led by Heinz with four.

Ipswich was next scheduled to attend the Big Bo Classic versus Wolsey/Wessington on Dec. 30 in Wolsey starting with a 2 p.m. girls' varsity game that would wrap the 2020 portion of their schedule. (The Tiger varsity boys were to face off with the W-W Warbirds at the conclusion of the girls' game.)