Senior sharpshooter Macy Birkholz fired in 27 points Thursday night to lead Mankato East to a 65-38 Big Nine Conference girls basketball win over Northfield at the East gym.
Birkholz, who will continue her career next season at Wayne State, tacked three more 3-pointers on to her school-record from beyond the arc as she quickly approaches the 1,000-point plateau. Not only did Birkholz shoot the ball well, her ability to attack the basket created issues for the Raiders (1-3 overall, 1-2 in Big Nine). East (2-1, 2-0) dominated the glass 42-30 and committed fewer turnovers 22-11.
“We are playing well together,” Birkhlolz said. “In practice we have a procedure that really transfers into the game. We like playing together and have very good chemistry. We really try on communicating with each other so we are all on the same page and know what is going on. My effort depends on the team and they gave me good passes to get looks off screens.
“It’s a lot of fun when we’re all hitting our shots and playing together. This is my senior year and I am having a lot of fun. There are good all-around people to play with and we’re having a lot of fun. We just have to keep reading the flow of the game and whatever it’s giving us.”
East, which connected on 25 of 57 from the field for 43.8% compared to the Raiders’ 15 of 50 for 30%, used a 13-2 run to expand an early one-point lead to 19-7 on Birkholz’s two foul shots seven minutes into the contest. Birkholz seven-point flurry — a 17-footer head on, a pull-up 3-pointer and a reverse layup off a drive to the cup — along with a baseline 3-pointer from junior Hannah Full and Ellie Edberg’s three baskets pushed the margin to 38-19 at the break.
“It was nice to get out to an early lead,” Edberg, who ended up with 11 points, eight rebounds and four steals, said. “I think we worked well together as a team and used this game to work on some of our weaknesses and freshen some things up.
“We’ve been really focusing on getting both offensive and defensive rebounds so we can go back up or run the floor in transition. We’re playing at a quicker pace where we know somebody is up ahead and can hold them accountable to shoot it. … We crashed the boards hard and that allowed us to get a lot of second shots, which we converted into points.”
After the Raiders went on an 8-0 run to trim the deficit to 49-35, Birkholz’s steal and nifty in-the-lane-spin move sparked a game-ending 16-2 surge which featured back-to-back hoops from junior forward Kylinn Stangl. Stangl scored six points and pulled down eight rebounds.
“Cleaning up the boards was an area we were focusing on,” East coach Ana Boever said. “Overall, we started out kind of scrambled, but we came back at the end of the first half and into the second half. We were focusing more on moving the ball around and then getting stops on defense.
“I think the good start helped the confidence in the girls, but at the same time started to get scrambled after the big start. We had to reel them in a little bit and work on making improvements to make good passes and set up our offense.”
Northfield was led by freshman guard Maia Richardson’s 12 points.
East plays a 3 p.m. game Saturday at Winona.