By John Rittenhouse
The Hills-Beaver Creek girls’ basketball team nearly recorded its second straight trophy win in Red Rock Conference play Monday in Hills.
Four days after defeating league unbeaten Adrian in Adrian Thursday, the Patriots hosted the RRC’s second-place team in Fulda Monday.
H-BC was in a position to stage another upset when it opened a six-point lead over the Raiders in the third quarter, but Fulda rallied to outscore the Patriots 20-9 in the fourth quarter to pull out a 52-42 victory.
The loss snapped a season-long, five-game winning streak put together by the Patriots. H-BC ends the regular season with a 14-9 record and a 10-6 mark in conference play.
H-BC opens the South Section 3A Tournament as the event’s No. 5 seed. The Patriots take on No. 4 Red Rock Central, a team that beat H-BC 59-48 in Lamberton Jan. 25, in Saturday’s quarterfinals in Worthington. Game time is 2:30 p.m.
The Patriots lost an opportunity to enter Saturday’s game with a load of confidence if they could have kept their lead against Fulda Monday.
H-BC led 29-23 when Erin Boeve scored the first four points of the third quarter and Amanda Olson drained a pair of free throws at the 4:00 mark. Fulda, however, ended the period with a 9-4 surge capped by a field goal with 10 seconds remaining to trail by one (33-32) entering the fourth quarter.
The Raiders opened the fourth quarter with a full-court press that helped them move in front 41-35 midway through the period.
H-BC trimmed the difference to one point (41-40) when Melinda Feucht drained a field goal with 2:33 remaining, and it trailed 43-42 when Cassi Tilstra sank a pair of free throws with 2:25 left to play. Things slipped away from H-BC at that point as Fulda scored the game’s final nine points to win by 10.
“We usually do well against the press, but we didn’t handle it very well in the fourth quarter,” said H-BC coach Tom Goehle. “We haven’t seen a press in a while, and it showed.”
The game’s first half was a tight one.
Fulda sported a pair of three-point leads in the first quarter before H-BC moved in front 11-10 with a field goal from Feucht with 1:31 remaining.
The Raiders tied the game at 11 before the quarter was complete, and the score was knotted at 13 in the second quarter when Olson made a pair of field goals to give H-BC a 17-13 lead at the 6:01 mark of the period. Fulda rallied to tie the game at 23 before the first half was complete.
Boeve and Tilstra scored 14 and 10 points respectively to lead H-BC.
Boeve charted 13 rebounds and blocked four shots, while Tilstra recorded eight rebounds and eight assists. Feucht chipped in five assists.
Box score
B.Rozeboom 0 0 0-0 0, Feucht 2 0 1-2 5, Sandstede 1 0 0-0 2, Tilstra 4 0 2-2 10, S.Rozeboom 2 0 –12 5, Boeve 6 0 2-6 14, Olson 2 0 2-2 6, Mulder 0 0 0-0 0.
Team statistics
H-BC: 17 of 46 field goals (37 percent), eight of 13 free throws (62 percent), 40 rebounds, 21 turnovers.
Fulda: 14 of 56 field goals (25 percent), 19 of 26 free throws (73 percent), 30 rebounds, nine turnovers.
