Packed stands. Cheering fans. A halftime dance performance.
This is the stuff rivalry games are made of.
No. 5 Devils Lake girls’ basketball was the favored team on Monday, by both record and ranking, but that didn’t stop fans from both Devils Lake and Four Winds/Minnewaukan from showing out. Ahead of the boys’ game on Tuesday, which carries even more weight, the Firebirds (13-5, 6-2) handled the Indians (9-10, 3-6) 58-38.
“It was nice to see us really work hard and get after it on the defensive end,” head coach Justin Klein said. “And those turnovers turned into points, which sometimes we haven’t done a very good job of.”
Playing in front of one of their biggest crowds all year, the Firebirds came out looking nervous right out of the gate. Their passes weren’t crisp, and their shots were wild. They missed some layups and free throws that should have been routine. After a three by Indians eighth-grade guard Suri Gourd, Devils Lake trailed 5-2 in the early minutes.
“I think they didn’t realize how intense it would be,” Klein said, “and the tone of how the officials let them play a little bit. So we had to adjust to that.”
Cabryn Fritel scored Devils Lake’s first six points on two layups and two free throws, which was a critical early asset with the team not gelling right away. The crowd noise didn’t seem to phase her at all.
“We just try to block them out,” Fritel said. “Don’t pay attention to them.”
Fritel’s efforts had Devils Lake leading 6-5, but a shot by Kendra Spotted Wolf put the Indians back in front.
That was the last lead FW/M would hold.
A free throw by Torri Fee tied the game — her lone point in the first half. The Firebirds got three more on a Jolie Martinson layup and a Gabrielle McLaurin free throw. Gourd, who’s the youngest but probably quickest player on the Indians, finished the first quarter with a shot to cut Devils Lake’s lead to 11-9. It wasn’t the prettiest quarter for the Firebirds, but they were leading, and the crowd energy was still high.
“I thought the first quarter was real intense,” Klein said. “Everybody wants to knock us off because we’re the bigger school. But especially Four Winds.”
Tylie Brodina began the second quarter with her only basket of the game; she struggled to find openings for clean shots for the majority of the night.
The Firebirds still weren’t playing perfectly and kept turning the ball over. But while Klein felt Devils Lake capitalized on most of its turnovers, the same couldn’t be said of the Indians. Their ball handling was messy, and very few of their steals led to points. They put up just five points in the second quarter, while Devils Lake started to actually find a groove and put up 19. Six different Firebirds contributed to the second-quarter attack.
“Wearing them down. That full-court pressure was trapping and making them always have to look behind each other and see who was coming, or worse, a trap was coming,” Klein said. “We kind of took them out of their game. They like to pick and roll, and isolate players, and we didn’t really give them a chance to do that.”
Devils Lake’s lead was at a commanding 30-14 by halftime. The Firebirds were starting to outpace the Indians, especially as they settled in and played their game after the nervous start.
Gabrielle McLaurin opened the second half with a three, continuing Devils Lake’s versatile offensive attack.
“I thought out of halftime, that was huge,” Klein said. “And that’s something we’ve been looking for. At times, we have really struggled on offense. So any offense we get from anybody else is a bonus.”
Fee scored six straight for Devils Lake, and Fritel added three more baskets. Fritel ended up leading the team with 16 points.
“That’s what we need,” Klein said. “We talked to her about that. We need more points. We need her to be a threat on offense. She went to the hole and went to the rim much better than she has.”
Fritel was a force on defense as well, helping the Firebirds out with steals and being a pest for any Indian ball handler. She was able to anticipate and intercept some of FW/M’s passes. Klein credited how hard she played throughout all four quarters.
“I was just trying to read what they were going to do,” Fritel said. “See where they were gonna pass, so I could go pick it off and trap.”
The third quarter was the highest scoring quarter on both sides, with Devils Lake outscoring FW/M 24-19. The biggest bright spot for the Indians was Gourd, who led the team with 16 while nobody else had more than seven. But with the Firebirds shaking off the early-game jitters, it was clear they were the better team.
After a 54-33 score at the end of three quarters, the game concluded with a rather uneventful eight minutes of play. There were no points until Fritel made a layup at the 4:43 mark. The Indians didn’t score until 1:24 left in the game — the second time in recent weeks that the Firebirds have come close to a shutout quarter.
Gourd finished the game with a three-pointer, completing a strong personal performance in the midst of her team being outplayed by Devils Lake. It was a well-rounded, relatively stress-free victory for the Firebirds, who put together another forceful defensive effort and got scoring contributions from a wide enough variety of players to lock down the 20-point win.
“If we can make some baskets, whether it’s inside or outside, go to the rim and score, convert, I think things get a lot easier,” Klein said. “You put teams in a hole, and then it’s hard for them to dig it out because we pressure so much. That Four Winds team we just played — they were really tired. And then they get sloppy and start falling, and things like that… That’s our goal, is just go at these teams and pressure.”
Joseph “Mojo” Hill is a reporter covering Lake Region sports for the Devils Lake Journal. Contact him on Twitter @mojohill22 or at jhill@devilslakejournal.com for any tips, questions or story ideas.
