EFFINGHAM — Heavyweight battles will either live up to the billing or not.
The Effingham and Teutopolis girls basketball game on Tuesday night was a contest that lived up to the billing.
The game checked every box.
Two state-ranked, powerhouse teams.
Check.
A back-and-forth game that went right down to the wire.
Check.
More than 32 minutes to decide a victor.
Check.
You name it, this game delivered it.
The Flaming Hearts were the team to make enough positive plays at the end, though, defeating the Lady Shoes 49-43 in overtime. The victory pushed Effingham to 22-2 on the season; it was also the 10th-straight triumph for the Hearts.
“We got off to a really good start,” head coach Jeff Schafer said. “We made just enough plays to stay in it. We got it cut to five at halftime, so we felt we survived the storm. Then, we kept playing.
“I’m so proud of the way they hung in there.”
T-Town senior Allie Ruholl started the game by making a layup.
The Flaming Hearts answered with back-to-back three-pointers: the first from junior Tessa Raddatz and the second from senior Averie Wolfe.
Ruholl then made another layup to cut the EHS lead to two points.
Senior Alyssa Martin then got her shot to fall and drew a foul. She made her free-throw, increasing the Hearts’ lead to five points.
The Lady Shoes exploded after that, going on a 14-0 run.
Senior Kelsey Niemerg ignited the run with a layup. Junior Jersey Gaddis then made one before another Niemerg layup gave her team the lead with 1:53 left in the opening frame.
Ruholl followed with a layup. Senior Anna Probst then made a three-pointer before Niemerg made one just as the horn sounded.
The run continued at the beginning of the second quarter. Senior Sophia Martin made a layup and then a three-pointer.
“We were looking to get to the basket and cutting like we’re supposed to,” said head coach Laurie Thompson on her team’s early run. “When they overplayed us, we ripped and went to the basket.”
The run ended with 3:57 left in the second quarter after an Alyssa Martin free throw.
Raddatz then made a layup to cut the lead to seven points, 23-16. Effingham had missed its first 11 shots of the quarter before the Raddatz hoop.
Junior Drew Weis then made a layup. Wolfe followed with one after and all of a sudden, a once double-digit lead was gone.
“I had three starters sitting on the bench, so that was part of it,” said Thompson on her team giving up a 14-point lead. “My bench didn’t step up and do what they could. We’ve got to get better at coming in and knowing what we’re supposed to do at that time.”
Though giving up its lead, T-Town still managed to take a five-point advantage into halftime.
The Hearts opened the third quarter with the first two points. The Lady Shoes answered with a pair of Ruholl free throws.
EHS then tied the game after a hoop and a Wolfe three-pointer with 4:17 to go.
“One possession at a time; we can’t get them all back at once. (The players) were saying that,” said Schafer on what the message was at the break.
The Hearts regained the lead after a pair of Wolfe free throws with 3:41 left in the period. Junior Maci Hayes then made one of her two shots at the charity stripe.
Senior Malea Helmink pushed T-Town closer to the lead with a layup with 2:11 left in the frame. Niemerg then made both of her free throws to give the Lady Shoes a 31-30 lead.
Sophia Martin followed with a three-pointer to make it 34-30 before Hayes split a pair of free throws to end the stanza.
Helmink converted a shot and drew a foul to start the scoring in the fourth. She missed her free-throw attempt, but Gaddis made up for the miss, later making a layup to increase the margin to seven points, 38-31.
The pesky EHS bunch continued to hang around, though.
Alyssa Martin and senior McKenzie Love made shots in the paint to eventually make it a one-point game with 29.7 seconds left.
Then, with 18.9 seconds to go, the Lady Shoes tried to inbound the ball to Helmink, but Alyssa Martin was in the right place at the right time.
Martin knocked the ball away, scooped it up and finished at the basket to give the Hearts the lead.
Following the basket, T-Town advanced the ball down the court. The Lady Shoes were then in a baseline out-of-bounds situation, where Ruholl would receive the pass and was then fouled on her way up to the basket.
She swished her first free throw before missing her second off the back iron.
On the rebound, Ruholl and Alyssa Martin fought for possession, ultimately ending in a jump ball and the Lady Shoes having a second shot at winning the game in regulation.
Helmink’s attempt at the buzzer missed, though, sending the contest to overtime.
It was all EHS after that, with defense leading the way.
The Hearts gave up three points in the extra period. Three of T-Town’s first four possessions ended with a turnover.
The Lady Shoes finished with 22 turnovers. EHS had just five, the last one coming with 42 seconds to go in the extra session.
“We’ve got to take care of the ball and we’re not taking care of the ball right now,” Thompson said. “The majority of it is due to poor decision-making. We’ve got to get better at making decisions early, seeing what the defense is giving us and taking what we can get.
“There was a lot of indeciveness and that cost us dearly.”
Thompson added that in order to fix that issue, her team can’t panic.
“They just can’t panic. There are so many times when our first instinct is to dribble and we’ve been trying to break that,” she said. “We work on that daily, but what we work on in practice needs to carry over to the game.”
Schafer said he didn’t watch his players at the free-throw line at the end of the game.
Instead, he watched their hands.
“I didn’t even watch them. I just watched their follow-through,” Schafer said. “If I saw a really good follow-through and a little smile, I knew it went in.”
Both coaches said that this was a game they needed, win or lose.
Thompson said, “These are the games we need. We’ll learn something from this.”
Schafer added, “We said before the game, ‘There’s going to be 10 kids out there, playing basketball the right way. Fundamentally sound and doing all the little things. Whoever makes the most plays is going to win.'”
Alyssa Martin led the Hearts with 17 points. She added five rebounds.
“I thought Averie did a good job of finding her on the break,” Schafer said. “Drew found her once. (The team) knows where she and Averie are always at.”
Wolfe had 12 points and four rebounds.
Schafer said she truly excelled on defense.
“She was phenomenal on the ball,” he said. “A lot of times, I don’t gamble with Averie and put her on the other team’s best player, but I didn’t think there were any possessions to give away.
“She’s probably the best on-ball defender I’ve ever coached.”
Raddatz had 10 points and two rebounds.
Weis had five points and nine rebounds. Despite not making a three-pointer in the game, Schafer has been pleased with her perimeter shooting and her desire to improve at it.
“She’s improved her outside shooting and is just an incredible kid to coach,” Schafer said.
Hayes had two points and five rebounds. Love had three points and four rebounds.
“She did have trouble finishing tonight,” said Schafer of Love. “(The shots) went in-and-out.”
The game wasn’t all that big for Love, who is playing her first meaningful varsity minutes this season.
“She doesn’t have a lot of experience in these types of games. When we took her out in the fourth quarter, I made her sit by Coach (Aaron) Witges and had him remind her, ‘It’s time. Don’t back away from this moment.'” Schafer said.
Niemerg and Ruholl led T-Town with 11 points. Niemerg had six rebounds. Ruholl had seven.
Sophia Martin had eight points and two rebounds. Probst had three points and four rebounds. Gaddis had six points and one rebound.
Helmink had four points and a whopping 19 rebounds.
“She works her tail off on the boards,” Thompson said.
For the Hearts, this season is their best since 2017-2018, when they were one win away from the state tournament.
Schafer said this group has been a “dream” for him to coach.
“They are just one. You seen how much fun they have playing together,” Schafer said. “When you have two superstars, like I feel we have, there’s no jealousy toward them. They get them the ball.”