Junior wing Livi Downs surpassed the 1,000-point barrier for her career Friday night as the Mankato West girls basketball team held on to defeat a tenacious Mankato East outfit 67-59 in a Big Nine Conference game at the West gym.
Downs, playing in her second game since missing six due to a thumb injury, reached her milestone at the 16:16 mark of the first half when she finished off a slicing drive to the basket with a left-handed banker.
“It means so much because not everybody gets a chance to score that many points,” Downs said. “I think it was my third shot of the game so it was great to share the moment with my teammates. They’ve worked very hard to help me along and they were able to celebrate with me.”
West (6-8, 4-4 in the Big Nine) looked like it would have its way with the Cougars (1-10, 1-8) when Downs’ top-of-the-key 3-pointer with 5:20 left in the first half produced a 26-11 advantage.
However, East used a 10-0 surge late in the half to close within 37-27 on senior forward Hannah Full long 3-pointer. Three Cougars — Full, senior guard Maddy Beaty and junior forward Ariet Omot — tallied 12 points each while senior forward Kylinn Stangl chipped in 10 points and a team-best 16 rebounds.
“This isn’t a loss we hang our heads about,” East coach Ana Boever said. “We have gotten consistently better the past three games. They’re putting the work in at practice, and now they’re starting to apply it to games. We have that mentality of ‘why not us’ so we’re just going to keep working hard. We’re limiting our turnovers more and keeping that energy up on the floor.”
After Downs’ spinning move to the basket and two free throws gave the Scarlets a 56-45 lead with 6:04 to go, Ilhan Mould’s 8-foot banker sparked an 8-0 run which closed the gap to 56-53 on Omot’s putback with 4:27 remaining. Sophomore guard Lilly Bannerman came off the bench to fire through a pair of 3-pointers before junior Romo Smith’s left-wing triple sealed things.
“We’ve been focusing on building this program and have been putting the work in at practice,” said Beaty, who also collected six assists. “I think the way we played tonight showed the work we’ve put in. We got a little tired the first eight minutes of the game but then we switched defenses which flustered West a little bit. We were able to move the ball and find the open player which gave us some momentum.”
Senior guard Ella Mullenbach, another 1,000-point scorer, led the Scarlets with 20 points, five steals and four assists while Downs contributed 17 points, nine rebounds and five assists. Smith ended up with nine points and seven rebounds for West, which connected on 26 of 66 for 39.3% compared to the Cougars’ 21 of 44 for 47.7%. East won the boards 39-38 and committed more turnovers 19-15.
“I felt we struggled a little bit defensively in where to pick up the ball,” West coach Gretchen Keefe said. “They were able to take the ball to the hole and we need to work on that. If we can’t find a way to go to the basket we have to find a way to score elsewhere. We just didn’t play our typical strong defense and that allowed them to score 58 points.”
Both teams are in action Tuesday, with West hosting powerful Marshall and East entertaining New Ulm.