By John Rittenhouse
The Hills-Beaver Creek girls' basketball team earned the right to play another night after winning the rubber game of a three-tilt season series against Southwest Christian Saturday in Worthington.
Taking on the sixth-seeded E-Gals in the quarterfinal-round of the South Section 3A Girls' Basketball Tournament, the third-seeded Patriots overcame an early deficit to post a 44-43 victory.
The game was tight from beginning to end, and it was decided by the fact that H-BC turned the ball over 14 fewer times than SWC did (25-11) throughout the contest.
"We did a good job of limiting our number of turnovers, which I thought ended up being the difference in the game," said Patriot coach Tom Goehle. "It was a great game. We were really aggressive defensively, and we played well overall."
The rubber game of the season series also proved to be the most entertaining one between the two long-time rivals.
H-BC secured a comfortable 43-33 win in the season's first meeting in Edgerton Dec. 6. SWC evened the score by toppling the Patriots 51-31 in Hills Feb. 7.
Neither team had a double-figure lead in SaturdayÕs tournament game.
SWC got off to a good start by taking a 14-11 lead in the first quarter, but the Patriots went on an 11-4 scoring run to gain a 22-18 halftime advantage.
The Patriots increased their lead to six points (34-28) by the end of the third period, and led by four to nine points during most of the fourth quarter.
SWC, which made three three-pointers in the final 1:30, found itself trailing by two points before Jody Rentschler canned a pair of free throws with 12 seconds left to play to make it a 44-40 game.
Another three by the E-Gals made it a 44-43 difference, and SWC got the ball back when H-BC missed a pair of charity shots with 1.6 seconds remaining. SWC, however, never did get off a shot before the final horn sounded.
Post Erin Boeve led the Patriots to victory with a 16-point, 12-rebound, five-blocked shot and four-steal performance.
Senior wing Becky Broesder also came up big for the winners, scoring 11 points, coming down with six rebounds and recording three steals and three assists.
Cassi Tilstra had four steals and three assists for H-BC, and Brittney Rozeboom chipped in three steals.
Box score
B.Rozeboom 1 0 0-0 2, B.Olson 1 0 0-0 2, Rentschler 1 0 2-2 4, Tilstra 2 0 1-4 5, Broesder 4 0 3-4 11, S.Rozeboom 0 0 0-0 0, DeNoble 1 0 2-3 4, Boeve 7 0 2-4 16.
Team statistics
H-BC: 17 of 53 field goals (32 percent), 10 of 18 free throws (56 percent), 27 rebounds, 11 turnovers.
SWC: 17 of 43 field goals (40 percent), two of eight free throws (25 percent), 31 rebounds, 25 turnovers.
