MANKATO — Freshman guard Jazmyn Goetticher fired in 25 of her career-high 27 points in the first half Tuesday afternoon to lead Nicollet to a 79-39 Valley Conference win over Mankato Loyola at Fitzgerald gym.
After junior forward Amelia Speckel’s second-effort basket pulled the Crusaders (4-14 overall, 2-9 in Valley) even at 8, freshman wing Aubrey Hulke’s driving hoop triggered a burst which produced a 20-8 Raiders’ lead on freshman guard Zoie Rengstorf’s layup off a turnover. Rengstorf added a left baseline 3-pointer in the run while Goettlicher tallied a three-point play and layup.
“I think we were sharing the ball very well and a lot of our dribble drives were open,” Goettlicher said. “We’ve been working on a new offense in practice and it seemed to work. A strong part of our defense is our press and it seems a lot of teams struggle with our half-court press. It was a team that didn’t have a strong ball-handler. It was really helpful for us.
“We have a lot of fast girls so we work on running a lot in practice drills. We’re a very fast paced team which seems to work out for us. This is a team sport and we really work well together. We’re a close group and being such good friends helps us both on and off the court.”
After sophomore Ava Evenson’s 3-pointer along with buckets from seventh-grader Brooks Waagner and senior Molly Koester cut the deficit to 20-15, junior forward Megan Soost’s 18-footer began a half-ending 27-10 that expanded Nicollet’s margin to 52-25 at the break. Rengstorf tallied 12 of 19 points over the opening 18 minutes while sophomore forward Cheyenne Klockziem put through eight of her 21 points.
“We’re a young team that has improved a lot with some younger kids playing some bigger roles,” Nicollet coach Dustin Wright said. “We wanted our full-court press to cause some chaos and force some turnovers which would result in some easy offense for us. I like the way this group competes in both practices and games. We have three girls that average in double figures but then we also have different girls who step up and can play too.”
Loyola, which ended up with 35 turnovers compared to the Raiders’ 17, connected on 15 of 40 from the field for 37.5% while the Raiders (15-6, 10-1) hit on 33 of 58 for 56.8%. Loyola enjoyed a 30-24 advantage on the boards. Speckel led the Crusaders with 15 points and nine rebounds while Evenson hit a pair of threes in ending up with 12 points.
“We needed to come out playing our best game and we didn’t,” Loyola coach Alayna Benike said. “They got off to the good start and we never got back in it. We’ll have to do some defensive drills in practice this week. Offensively, we need to work on our cuts and getting the ball moving more.”
Speckel put through eight of her team-best 15 points in the second half while Isabel Endres and Kailey Campbell each chipped in a 3-pointer.
“I feel like we came into this game a little bit scared,” Speckel said. “Don’t get me wrong, they’re a great team that plays well together but really didn’t prepare mentally which hurt us a lot. We struggled breaking their press. I feel confident that we can do that, but we just didn’t execute against it today. … It was kind of a scramble for us offensively, we didn’t space out very well.”
Nicollet hosts Alden-Conger/Glenville-Emmons Thursday while Loyola entertains Sibley East Monday.