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Bowman County continues to roll with road-win over Tigers

gaylon wm. parker, the dickinson press, n.d.
·4 min read

Jan. 30—SOUTHWEST NORTH DAKOTA — Bowman County sees the light at the end of the tunnel, but aren't even close to slowing down and the Bulldog train continued at its breakneck pace with a Monday, Jan. 29 win over New England on the road that featured the home-team being blanked in the fourth quarter. The 54-16 win improved on BCHS's perfect District 5 record to 8-0 and dropped the Tigers to 1-3 with the Division B/Region 3-District 5 playoffs just around the corner from Feb. 19 to 22 in Killdeer.

Three Bulldog athletes ended up in double-figures on the night, but no Tiger player could cross the double-digit line, with senior guard Sophie Olsonawski leading the way for NEHS at 6 points.

"I think, sometimes, when you know you're playing a great team that affects you mentally," New England head coach Jason Jung said. "But the one thing about this team — and I've had compliments from many, many coaches that we've played against — and they said the team works hard every second of the game and they don't give up."

Meanwhile, the 'Dawgs clawed their way to a massive 27-10 advantage at the halftime break due to the "big three" of junior forward Sophia Headley, senior guard Jaci Fischer and junior forward Raegen Honeyman scoring 6, 8 and 8 points, respectively, in the opening 16 minutes of play.

"You can't take your foot off the gas, you have to keep the pedal to the metal the whole time and you've got to continue to prove yourself defensively on the court and then go use it offensively," Bowman County head coach Jaci Mrnak said. "So, I was really proud of them; we had a few girls gone tonight — for sickness reasons — so it was a gut-check."

But Bowman County (14-2 overall) was a long way from being done, as the Bulldogs posted another 19 points in the third quarter and 8 more in the final eight minutes, while holding the Tigers to 6 — and that included a scoreless fourth-frame — as Honeyman went-off for 16 second-half points and Headley added 7 more to her double-digit total of 13.

Honeyman ended up with a game-high 24 points, while Fischer finished off with 10, and the Bulldogs combined to shoot 12-of-19 from the free-throw line.

The DB/R3-D5 schedule is coming to a close, and Bowman County will be hosting Glen Ullin-Hebron on Thursday, Feb. 1, while New England has a busy home schedule this week with visits from Mandaree on Tuesday, Jan. 30 and Hettinger-Scranton on Thursday.

In other Division B/Region 3-District 5 play, Hettinger-Scranton posted a come-from-behind victory on Monday over Richardton-Taylor on the road, charging back from a 4-point deficit at the end of three quarters to upend the Raiders by 8. Junior guard Laela Jensen took the team on her shoulders and scored a game-high 20 — which included 11 in the fourth quarter — while the Nighthawks defense cloaked RTHS with a smothering defense that limited the home-team to only 6 in the final frame.

The Raiders (7-10 overall, 2-5 district) raced to a 20-13 lead at the break on the strength of a pair of 3-pointers from Chesney Gjermundson and solid outside shooting from junior guard AshLynn Christensen, who scored a pair of treys and 8 of her team-high 14 points in the first half.

Meanwhile, Hettinger-Scranton (8-7, 4-3) kept matters close with shots from Sienna Burwick and sophomore guard Kinley Stadheim — who both connected from behind the arc — while converting 3-of-5 from the charity-stripe.

The shooting mostly went cold for the Raiders from there, but HSHS's Monica Morris joined in on Jensen's heroics with a trey and 9 total points, while Jensen paced the Nighthawks with a perfect 8-for-8 shots from the stripe to outlast Richardton-Taylor down the stretch.

Next-up for Hettinger-Scranton will be a Feb. 1 trip to New England to face the Tigers in DB/R3-D5 action, while Richardton-Taylor will be hosting South Heart the same evening.

For more information about prep basketball in North Dakota, please keep reading your Dickinson Press and/or visit the websites at

https://ndhsaanow.com/teams/basketball-boys

and

https://ndhsaanow.com/teams/basketball-girls

.