10 hours Ago By Blake Durham
MITCHELL — Featured in an evening time slot at the DWU Classic, Friday night's regional rivalry game between Ethan and Parkston girls basketball was a contest both sides desperately wanted to win. Spurred on by strong pressure defensively, the Rustlers eventually pulled away and left the Trojans behind. ADVERTISEMENT Behind a strong second half, Ethan took down Class B No.
2-ranked Parkston 47-31 at the Corn Palace. Leading only by four points at halftime, the Rustlers outscored the Trojans 29-17 in the second half on the strength of a 62.5% shooting performance while holding the Trojans to 6-of-24 from the field over the final 16 minutes.
“The big key for us was the job we did defensively,” Ethan head coach Tom Young said. “I tell them almost every time out, ‘We need to get a stop, a rebound and need to take care of the basketball.’ Some girls stepped up and had big shots in the second half that maybe they weren’t expecting, but were more than capable for us.
” Early on, scoring came at a premium as both teams only came away three points each in the opening three minutes of the first quarter. Morgan Maxwell picked up six early points on a pair of triples and the Trojans took a 10-8 lead into the second quarter of play. From there, Ethan’s transition game took over as miscues offensively for the Trojans pulled the Rustlers out in front on an 8-2 scoring run.
Ella Pollreisz came away with a steal and scored on the other end en route to a game-high 17 points on 6-of-12 shooting, as the pressure mounted on Parkston’s defense to keep the game close. “Our bad offense put a lot of pressure on our defense,” Parkston head coach Cole Knippling said. “Our spacing was off, and our passing just wasn’t very clean.
We did not execute and move the way that I know we can and we normally do.” Ethan forced 16 Parkston turnovers for the game and picked up 10 steals. In the third quarter, the Rustlers extended the lead to double-digits on fastbreak opportunities, with both Sadie Mueller and Rachel Klock igniting a mini 6-0 run on transition layups.
Pollreisz, who sat most of the third quarter due to picking up four fouls, came back out in the fourth and scored five points off an inbound play and a 3-pointer, pushing the lead to 17 points. ADVERTISEMENT “She’s 100% all the time,” Young said of Pollreisz. “She’s our senior leader, and the one thing about Ella is that she plays hard every possession and is that way in practice, leading by example.
” Behind Pollreisz in the scoring column, Klock picked up 12 points, five rebounds and three blocks. Marissa Storm had a game-high four steals to go with seven points and Mueller had six points. Ethan (15-3) hosts Freeman in its penultimate regular-season game on Tuesday, Feb.
18. Parkston (15-3), which was held to a season-low 31 points, had nine each from Maxwell and Mya Thuringer. Keeara Oakley finished with six points and five rebounds and Berkley Ziebart picked up five points and three steals.
The Trojans face Parker on Monday, Feb. 17, where the players will hopefully take away from the game how to come together during tough stretches. “When the going gets tough, how are we going to get after it?” Knippling said.
“How are we going to get together? I hope what we learned from this is how to use one another to get easy looks at the basket.".
