The Cardinals girls basketball team hung on in a physical, back-and-forth battle to secure a 55-47 win over Highland Park Tuesday night.
Head coach Brandon Parker said he was happy the team was able to escape with a win despite a sloppy performance.
“It’s always good to get a win,” Parker said. “In all honesty, tonight wasn’t a night where I was most pleased with my team. We did enough to win at the end, but we had plenty of opportunities early on.”
After a close first half, the Cardinals went on a 10-0 run to take a 9-point lead into halftime.
But to start the second half, it was Highland Park who took the momentum, shrinking the Cardinals’ lead to 1 point at the end of the third quarter.
That set up a tense fourth quarter with both teams physically battling for every rebound and loose ball. The Cardinals pulled away with under two minutes remaining thanks to a couple of clutch buckets by freshman Izzy Brunkow and senior Jayla Erpelding.
Freshman Brynn Deterding led the Cardinals with 22 points, including 11 in the fourth quarter.
“It wasn’t always the prettiest,” Deterding said. “I mean, we gave up that lead, but at the end of the day, it’s a win and we need to get to work for Thursday against Ottawa.”
Parker said a big issue for the Cardinals was rebounding. After starting the night strong, they let Highland Park get too many offensive rebounds, even when they were outnumbered under the basket.
“Overall tonight, you know, we didn’t have a killer’s mentality,” Parker said. “If you don’t have that, you’re gonna be lucky to win games, and we might have got a little lucky tonight.”
Parker said Erpelding played a key role in coming out on top at the end of a close fourth quarter. Erpelding was active defensively the entire night and came up with some clutch steals and rebounds in the final minutes.
“When we don’t rebound, we don’t succeed,” Erpelding said.
On the boys side, the Cardinals fought hard for three quarters, but Highland Park pulled away in the fourth leading to a 64-46 loss.
Head coach Kyle Deterding said he was happy with the team’s effort against a talented opponent.
“We competed,” he said. “We came out and we didn’t back down and, like I said, that’s a really good team. They’re easy to kind of get down against. If you let them, they can really turn the heat up.”
The Cardinals spent most of the game locked in a tight battle. They headed into halftime down only seven. After the third quarter, the deficit was only nine.
The team was led by senior Logan Sullivan’s 20 points, including a handful of big 3-pointers that helped keep Eudora close. Junior Caden Stedry added 8 more points with multiple tough finishes through contact underneath the basket.
But in the fourth, the tide shifted fast. Highland Park came out of the gate with two 3-pointers in the first two minutes. They used stifling defense to frustrate the Cardinals’ offense and create turnovers that led to easy baskets on the other end of the floor.
“We played hard, we competed pretty well for most of the game,” Deterding said. “In the middle of the fourth quarter, we got a little sloppy and lazy for a little bit, but I thought we competed pretty well.”
Highland Park outscored the Cardinals 15-6 in the final quarter.
Both teams now turn their attention to a home game against Ottawa later in the week. The girls will play Thursday night and the boys on Friday.
Parker said he was looking forward to playing Ottawa, who he dubbed the best team in the league.
“We will have a good game ahead of us,” he said. “And we’ve got to come out with better effort for 32 minutes than we did tonight.”
At halftime of the boys game, the Cardinals girls cross country team was recognized for its third straight state championship, won last October.
Reach reporter Cuyler Dunn at [email protected]
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