DEVILS LAKE — No. 2 Devils Lake girls’ basketball went nearly half of the first quarter without scoring.
Grafton led 8-0 and 14-4.
“We didn’t look like we were quite ready to play,” Firebirds head coach Justin Klein said.
Devils Lake, the defending Class A champion, played flat against a Spoilers team that sits at fourth place in Region 2. It wasn’t until a buzzer beater at the end of the first half that the Firebirds found a lead.
But they managed to take care of business. Devils Lake (11-1, 4-0) played a much better second half, and took down Grafton (3-7, 1-3) 73-56 on Tuesday. Torri Fee, who was held scoreless in the first half, put up 13 in the third quarter. Tylie Brodina also found her footing with 12 in the second half to finish with 17 overall. Claire Heilman added 12.
“I guess it’s a win,” Klein said. “A region win. We’re just gonna move on from it… Good thing it’s not region tournament time.”
The Firebirds turned it over on their first possession. Grafton started the scoring at 6:42 and ran out to an 8-0 start over the Firebirds. Cabryn Fritel, Jolie Martinson and Claire Heilman all missed open looks.
Klein wasted little time shaking things up. He sat all of the starters for most of the rest of the first quarter, only bringing Heilman back at 1:27. Presley Brown, Anna Shock, Mia Elsperger, Kendra Eckes and Ava Beck all got substantial playing time.
“Not feeling it,” Klein said. “You saw what you saw. Did you think I should have starters out there? Probably not. Yeah. Plus, I have faith in my bench. I have faith in the team. And I think sometimes the starters need to know that everybody’s human, and everybody plays poorly, and that’s why you have teammates. I wasn’t happy; I can tell you that.”
It was Brown who ended the scoring drought. She scored at 4:27, more than three and a half minutes into the game, to make it 8-2. Eckes then made a pair of free throws.
Devils Lake still didn’t find its groove yet. Grafton built a gradual 6-0 run full of Devils Lake turnovers and sloppy passes.
Heilman converted two more free throws, and Shock made an aggressive move that resulted in a successful and-one. That cut the deficit to five.
But Devils Lake still found itself down 16-9 at the end of the first quarter. Its starters combined for precisely zero field goals. It only had two field goals in the quarter total, from Brown and Shock. Even for a team that often starts slowly, it was a stunningly slow beginning.
“Just kind of a flat start, and we needed a jump-start,” Klein said.
Elsperger got Devils Lake going in the second quarter. At 6:32, starters Brodina, Fee and Martinson all returned.
Brodina missed her first three-ball attempt of the game. But Heilman made a triple with about five minutes left in the first half, cutting the gap to 18-14. It was the first field goal for any of Devils Lake’s starters.
Brodina’s first points came at 3:04. Heilman followed her with a basket, trimming the deficit to 20-18. Heilman led the Firebirds in the first half with seven points.
“She’s a strong player inside, and helps rebound and can hit the outside shot,” Klein said of Heilman. “She does a good job facing the hoop, too. So that’s important too. We’ve gotten her some good looks. Offensively, we can’t always have Tylie or Torri hitting threes. We’ve gotta have some other girls step up and hit some shots.”
Grafton scored four straight, but Devils Lake started to show signs of life with a 9-0 run to end the half. Fritel made a couple of nice moves to the rim to get Devils Lake within two again, and Elsperger tied it up with just a matter of seconds to go.
As the clock ran out, Brodina swished a buzzer-beating three. Despite everything, Devils Lake managed to attain a 27-24 lead at halftime.
“We just have to be better,” Klein said. “We know everybody wants to beat us and try to beat us. And again, we can’t just show up and expect to win… And I think we need to realize that sometimes, some nights, kids don’t have it, and we need somebody else to step up. And that’s the main thing. And that’s where we got our success last year. I mean, Tylie got hot at the end. Presley got hot at the end. Throughout the season, there were times where they struggled. Other kids struggled. Other kids picked each other up… It kind of comes back to team effort, team play.”
Devils Lake came out of the break with a different energy to it. Fee had a deuce and a triple almost immediately. Martinson had five points, including an and-one. In the first 98 seconds of the third quarter, Fee had eight points to help catapult the lead to 38-24.
It was a 20-0 run dating back to the first half.
Grafton mostly held steady with Devils Lake for much of the rest of the third quarter, coming within a nine-point margin before the Firebirds went on a 10-0 run. They led by 17 at the end of the third quarter and got into the 20s in the fourth.
“I think we executed a little bit better in that offense against that zone,” Klein said. “And got [Fee] some wide-open looks. And those are shots we want her to take. They were wide-open.”
Brodina scored nine points in the fourth quarter. She hit three triples in the game. Heilman had four points in the fourth quarter to finish with double figures.
It was a 17-point victory in the end, which doesn’t paint the whole picture of how Devils Lake struggled in the first half. The game exposed weaknesses the Firebirds won’t be able to afford against teams like No. 5 Thompson, which it beat by nine points recently but faces again Friday, Jan. 24.
“That’s a big game because that’s kind of for the one seed,” Klein said. “If we can pull that off, then it’s between us and Carrington… That’s a big game for us. They have good guard-playing. We’re gonna have to get out on their shooters, and hopefully we force them to make some poor decisions.”