MANKATO — A youthful Mankato Loyola girls basketball turned in a strong second-half effort Thursday night at Fitzgerald gym in a 45-38 Valley Conference loss to Cleveland.
Loyola (0-4 overall, 0-2 in Valley) watched as Clippers’ freshman guard Emma Kortuem poured through 18 of her game-high 21 points, including 10-point flurry over the final three minutes, in helping Cleveland build a 30-14 advantage entering the half.
However, despite missing all 14 of their first-half 3-point attempts and finishing 0 for 21 from beyond the arc, the Crusaders’ tenacious defense and the scoring of junior forward Amelia Speckel ignited a second-half burst which enabled Loyola to close within 41-38 on Speckel’s play off a left-handed head-on banker with 1:28 to go. Speckel ended up with 20 points and eight rebounds.
“It doesn’t matter what age level but our leaders really helped,” Speckel said. “We were able to push through the bad start and get people where they needed to be. We seemed to get a boost of energy in the second half but we need more of that. I knew I had to lock down on defense and to accomplish that really helped our team out.
“Our talking defensively was much better than it has been in the few games we’ve had so that was good. I think everybody on our team is improving a lot and that makes them fun to play with. We were able to drive to hoop and draw fouls which was a big thing in allowing us to get more points. We come into the gym every day ready to work hard and develop more team chemistry.”
Leading 39-35, Kortuem’s twisting transition drive — her lone basket of the second half — with 1:59 to go was followed by four foul shots down the stretch for the Clippers. Junior forward Taylor McCabe netted eight points and 11 rebounds for the winners, who also received eight points from freshman guard Harper Rutz. Cleveland (2-1, 2-0) connected on 16 of 55 from the field for 29% compared to the Crusaders’ 16 of 58 for 27.5%.
“It’s really hard to beat a zone when you don’t make a single outside shot,” first-year Loyola coach Alayna Benike said. “My team fought back despite not hitting any threes, so that tells me a lot about them. We seem to have too many lulls in the first half, and that makes it tough to claw out from.
“We need to start coming out with more energy and fire because it’s so tough to come back from a deficit like that. We stressed that we needed to attack more in the first half, but then we started to attack in the second half and things got closer. I was proud of the way we played defense in the second half. They showed a lot of pride in showing they didn’t want to lose so credit them for getting after it.”
Loyola opened the second half with an 8-2 run — fueled by Speckel’s three baskets — before sophomore Ava Evenson’s three-point play helped close the margin to 37-31 on Speckel’s two foul shots with 6:51 left. Evenson finished with eight points and seven boards while eighth-grader Madi Linder totaled seven rebounds and six assists.
“Our defense locked in at the end which really helped us out,” Clippers’ coach Myriah Rutz said. “Loyola moved the ball around better in the second half so we had to make some adjustments and figured it out at the right time. Offensively, we didn’t move the ball in the second half like I would have liked. I don’t know if it was a lack of energy in their defense.”
Both teams resume play on Tuesday, with Loyola hosting Martin County West and Cleveland entertaining Madelia.