Lynnville-Sully rallies past Bears in home debut

SULLY — If it wasn’t for a pair of lengthy scoring runs, the Lynnville-Sully girls basketball team would have suffered its first defeat Tuesday night to BGM.

The Class 1A No. 8 Hawks had runs of 13-4 and 14-0 to gain a 42-31 victory over the Bears in South Iowa Cedar League play. Outside of those two spurts, it was a struggle offensively for Lynnville-Sully.

“We battled hard and played hard, we just could not get a flow or a rhythm,” Lynnville-Sully coach Jerry Hulsing said. “It seemed like the harder we tried, the more we’d kick a ball out of bounds — I don’t know how many times a ball hit our hands. It was just one of those things where nothing really flowed — it was ugly.”

Senior Tessa Engle led the Hawks with 12 points, seven rebounds and five steals, while senior Mariah Terlouw added nine points. Sophomore Brianna James had eight points and seven rebounds as well.

The Hawks jumped all over the Bears in the first quarter, building a 13-4 lead after eight minutes of play. Lynnville-Sully held BGM to just one field goal in the opening quarter while using multiple fastbreak opportunities to start the game on a solid note.

“We got out there and ran — transition was a key to tonight’s game,” Hulsing said.

But BGM pushed back, going on an 8-1 run to start the second quarter to make it a two-point game after a Jessica Plants jumper. The Hawks came back with a James jumper, and after a Terlouw steal, Taylor Van Wyk found two points in the lane to make it 18-12.

The Bears ended the half by scoring the last eight points to take a surprising 20-18 lead at halftime. BGM extended the lead to four points early in the third quarter after a pair of free throws, but Lynnville-Sully held the Bears without a point for the next 8:01 of the ballgame.

In that time, the Hawks went on a 14-0 run — getting six points from Engle — to build a 32-22 lead early in the fourth quarter.

“We just kind of kept battling, kept battling, and we had a little bit of a spurt when we were down and next thing you know it’s 16,” Hulsing. “We kind of put it away then. Nothing was easy.”

Like the first quarter, the second half run was aided by transition points.

“Probably half of those points came off fast breaks — getting out and running a little bit,” Hulsing said. “The defense kind of initiated that run a little bit. We got some easy buckets and especially when our offense isn’t going and working very well, it’s nice to get some points off our defense.”

And the Hawks cruised from there, building a lead as large as 42-25 after a James shot inside before putting the substitutes in for the remainder of the game.

Moving down the road, the Hawks (2-0, 2-0 SICL) are off until Tuesday’s road matchup at Tri-County. For Lynnville-Sully to continue to gain wins, the team must improve free throw shooting.

In the win, the Hawks were just 6-of-17.

“We just got to go back and shoot with confidence — say the next one is going in,” Hulsing said. “It’s something we do in practice every day. It’s not like it’s new. It’s just one of those things where it wasn’t going to go in the hole tonight.”

Lynnville-Sully 42,
BGM 31
Score by quarters
BGM 4 16 2 9 — 31
L-S 13 5 12 12 — 42␇L-S individual statistics
Points — Tessa Engle 12, Mariah Terlouw 9, Brianna James 8, Tara Van Rees 5, Caitlin Cross 4, Taylor Van Wyk 2, Danielle Samson 2. 3-point goals — 2-7. Rebounds — 27 (Engle 7, James 7). Assists — 9 (Van Rees 4). Steals — 12 (Engle 5). Blocked shots — 1 (Van Rees 1). Team fouls — 13. Fouled out — None.