Tylie Brodina (Photo by Noah Clooten)
DEVILS LAKE — The Class A Girls’ Shootout, a two-day event at the Devils Lake Sports Center, got started Friday with a slate of five games.
No. 2 Devils Lake and Four Winds/Minnewaukan both took losses. The Firebirds (7-1, 2-0) were upset by Kindred (6-3, 2-1), while the Indians (1-7, 0-2) lost to Watford City (6-4).
Game 1: Kindred 60, No. 2 Devils Lake 54
The Firebirds’ first loss of the season came in a stunner against an unranked Kindred team.
Devils Lake led by 10 after the first quarter. But it got outscored 19-9 in the second quarter, then allowed five three-pointers in the third quarter. The Firebirds stayed in it until the final minute but couldn’t stage a complete comeback.
Tylie Brodina led Devils Lake with 21 points. But no other Firebird had more than eight. Siera Nipstad had 22 for Kindred, while Liza Trenbeath had 19. Kindred had seven three-pointers overall.
“We can’t score,” Firebirds head coach Justin Klein said. “We’re taking too many threes. We’re not running on offense as a team… When we did get open shots, we didn’t make them.”
Kindred stayed fairly even with Devils Lake through the first few minutes. The Vikings missed multiple prime layup chances, but Devils Lake turned it over on a sloppy pass.
Brodina, who scored the first points for the Firebirds but missed her and-one attempt, snatched a Kindred airball and got it down the court to Cabryn Fritel. Devils Lake led only 6-5 out of the gates.
Fritel grabbed an offensive rebound, leading to a Torri Fee bucket and a 7-0 run. Brodina navigated around hosts of defenders to find two successful three-pointers, separating the Firebirds’ lead a little bit to 18-7.
Fee made a triple to cap the quarter. Devils Lake had a relatively comfortable lead of 21-11. Brodina led the team with 10 points.
But the Firebirds struggled to finish drives once the second quarter got underway. Kindred landed back-to-back threes to rapidly shrink the lead to 21-17.
Devils Lake took a timeout, trailing 23-19. Another Kindred field goal made it 23-21. The Firebirds stretched their lead to 28-23 after buckets by Mia Elsperger and Fritel, but once again, Kindred responded. Devils Lake failed to take advantage of a rebound, and the Vikings tied it up on an and-one after a Brodina foul.
It was knotted up at 28-28.
A shot by Claire Heilman — just Devils Lake’s third field goal of the quarter — briefly put Devils Lake back up 30-28, but Kindred tied it going into the halftime break. The Vikings nearly took the lead with a running layup in the final seconds, but it rolled off the rim and they missed the rebound.
Still, it was a tie game at the half for a team that led by as many as 11 in the first quarter.
“Our kids need to get better with the game plan, for one,” Klein said. “And we need to do a better job on defense in the half-court. I think our half-court basketball right now is a mess.”
Brodina got the scoring started in the second half. But Kindred had two separate go-ahead triples, followed by a third that stretched its lead to 39-35. Kendra Eckes came in and saw one unluckily spin in and out of the bucket.
But Presley Brown, sitting Friday, provided a spark off the bench with back-to-back buckets. She got it back to 39-39. But just as rapidly as she tied it, Kindred landed yet another three to retake the lead.
The Vikings finished the quarter on a 5-0 run. It was only in the final seconds that they scored a non-three field goal. They made five triples — Nipstad and Trenbeath each had two of them, while the other came from Leah Rolland.
Devils Lake faced an uphill battle in the fourth quarter, trailing 47-41.
Elsperger trimmed the lead to four after a steal, and Kindred missed another three attempt. Brodina, who so often rises to the occasion in big moments, landed threes to cut the deficit to 51-48 and 53-51 — but it was too little, too late.
Heilman kept Devils Lake within one possession, making a shot with 47.7 seconds left. It was 57-54. But all the Firebirds could do was foul, and the Vikings made three of their final four free throws to make the gap insurmountable.
“We missed a box-out or two. That was costly at the end,” Klein said. “You expect to get a steal and a turnover and convert, and then it doesn’t happen. And all of a sudden, you’re pressing. You’re trying to figure it out. And I think sometimes, too, we were waiting for Tylie to hit a shot. And it’s not happening.”
Devils Lake completes the Shootout with a matchup against Watford City at 3:30 p.m. on Saturday. For the first time this season, the Firebirds will try to bounce back from a defeat.
“It’s a reality check,” Klein said. “I think everybody needs to understand that there’s a long season, a lot of games — a lot of region games yet — and we’ve just gotta make sure we get out of the region… Hopefully we can learn from it.”
Game 2: Watford City 49, Four Winds/Minnewaukan 43
Freshman phenom Suri Gourd returned after missing two weeks with an ankle injury. Her first practice back was only a day earlier, on Thursday. But some rust showed, and the team never fully clicked in a low-scoring loss.
Gourd led the Indians with 12 points, while Cailee Hanson had 11. But FW/M scored just nine points in each of the first two quarters and didn’t have a field goal in the fourth. Watford City struggled to shoot the ball as well, especially from three-point range, but it still had a more complete offensive attack that edged out the Indians.
“Our inexperience showed,” FW/M head coach Sean Gourd Sr. said. “It’s a long season. We’re gonna take our lumps, but hopefully we just try to get better.”
Gourd made a layup to kick off the game. And then both teams suffered a severe scoring rut for most of the rest of the quarter. It was still 2-1 nearly three and a half minutes into the game, with Watford City’s lone point coming on a free throw.
Gourd made her second shot at around 4:30. The Wolves’ shots in response were all over the place. They missed numerous layups and three-point attempts.
“Suri does a lot for us,” Gourd Sr. said. “Even though she’s a freshman, she understands that she’s gotta take the leadership role, and she has… She knows the game.”
Watford City converted a pair of free throws at 3:21, inching the score to 4-3. The Wolves got two rebounds after a missed layup and missed both attempts — but Gourd was charged with a foul. Watford City couldn’t take advantage anyway, missing both of the resulting free throws.
Sophia Alberts was the first Indian not named Suri Gourd to score for FW/M. She ran the score up to 6-3. Watford City finally recorded its first field goal at 1:20. The Wolves briefly took the lead with about 53 seconds left in the quarter, but Ava Gourd swished a three to put FW/M on top.
It was an ugly first quarter for both sides, but the Indians clung to a 9-7 advantage.
Watford City scored on its first possession of the second quarter. It missed a slew of shots, but took the lead at 6:06. Cameron Bishop was hit with a foul 40 seconds later, but once again, the Wolves missed both of their free throws. Watford City grabbed a rebound of a missed three attempt and made a layup to take a 13-9 lead.
FW/M got its first points of the second quarter with about 4:30 left in the half. It was a three for Hanson. She then tapped in a layup to put the Indians back on top. It spiraled into a 9-0 run for FW/M, capped by a rebound and basket for Gourd after Hanson missed another three attempt.
But the Wolves finished the first half on a 6-0 run of their own. A turnover led to Watford City taking the lead in the final seconds of the half. At the break, FW/M narrowly trailed, 19-18. Gourd had six points, and Hanson had five.
Watford City opened the second half with a pair of layups, then finally landed its first three-pointer at 5:43 to stretch its lead to 26-18.
“We did a lot of things, basic things, that we should have executed better,” Gourd Sr. said. “But Watford City played strong. They played some solid defense on us. And we just struggled with that. Right now, we’re trying to find our identity.”
S. Gourd made three buckets to get FW/M back within two. A. Gourd landed her second three of the game, squeezing the deficit to 33-32. But the Wolves responded with their own three, and led 38-34 at the end of the third quarter.
FW/M tied it back up with four straight free throws to start the fourth quarter. The final period largely became a free throw contest — the teams traded the lead twice before Watford City scored the quarter’s first field goal with around two minutes left.
Successful free throws by Hanson cut the deficit to 44-43. But the Wolves made another field goal, and though they only went 2-of-6 from the line to finish out the game, they did enough to win.
The Indians did not have a field goal in the fourth quarter. They went 9-of-11 from the line, but their shooting hurt them in the end.
“The energy was there. They worked hard,” Gourd Sr. said. “And at the end of the day, that’s all you really should ask.”
The Indians will look to respond against Beulah on Saturday at 12:30 p.m.
Other scores from Day 1 of the Class A Girls’ Shootout
Valley City 60, Rugby 33
Turtle Mountain 74, Shiloh Christian 47
Beulah 46, Central Cass 29
