Baxter girls knock off No. 7 Spartans

BAXTER — Sophie Meyer made sure Baxter’s girls’ basketball team knew it could give Class 1A No. 7 Collins-Maxwell its first loss of the season.

Head coach Eric Padget credited Meyer and the rest of the Bolts’ seniors for their leadership leading up to Baxter’s biggest win of the winter.

The Bolts used a 14-0 run to grab momentum and fought off a third-quarter run by the Spartans during a 57-48 win in Iowa Star Conference South Division action.

“We have great senior leadership and the confidence Sophie (Meyer) had with this game all week just trickled down to everybody,” Padget said. “This was a big one for sure.”

The Bolts have yet to crack the 1A rankings despite starting the season 15-1. They won their 15th straight game Tuesday night and hope to be in the final rankings when they are released on Thursday.

“Being ranked is always big for postseason seeding,” Padget said. “If we are lucky enough to get into the rankings, that has to help us with our seeding.”

Collins-Maxwell came into the game 17-0. But the 57 points Baxter scored against the Spartans were the most they have allowed this season.

Lilie Vansice did a lot of that damage for the Bolts as she scored nine in a row during the 14-0 to help put the home team in front by double-digits. And Baxter never trailed again despite the Spartans getting as close as three in the third and five in the fourth.

Vansice finished the game with a career-high 24 points and added three rebounds.

“This feels really good,” Vansice said. “We believed we could win this game. We knew we could do it. We set the pace, set the tone and kept going until the end of the game.”

There were seven ties in the first quarter and neither team led by more than two. Baxter started its 14-0 spurt with a layup by Sophie Meyer at the end of the first. Vansice’s personal 9-0 run to start the second put the Bolts up 25-14 and Meyer ended the run with a 3-pointer. She hit another 3 a little later to give the Bolts their biggest lead of the game at 31-15.

Meyer hit four 3-pointers in the game and scored 16 points. She also had four rebounds and four assists.

“Threes are kind of my forte. I get on the line during warmups and have someone rebound for me,” Meyer said. “If I am on in warmups, I try to stay in rhythm during the game. My teammates know that I hang out at the 3-point line.”

Collins-Maxwell (17-1 overall, 10-1 in conference play) used an 11-4 run to trim its halftime deficit to nine.

The Spartans then opened the second half with six straight to close the gap to 35-32. But Vansice scored again, McKenzie Eslinger scored a pair of buckets inside and Meyer drained a trey at the end of the period to push the lead back to 11.

Eslinger battled foul trouble throughout the game but still joined Vansice and Meyer in double-figures with 11 points and she grabbed three boards.

“When you prep for us, you have to prepare for all seven of us because any one of us can lead the team in scoring,” Meyer said of the team’s balance and various leading scorers this season. “We love it. We all have confidence in each other.”

The Spartans scored seven of the first eight points of the fourth to trim the margin to five, but Meyer buried another 3 and Vansice hit a runner to push it back to double digits.

Vansice then answered a Spartan triple with a 3-point play that made it 55-45. She made two free throws with 16 seconds left to seal the deal.

“She did a really nice job of taking what the defense gave her,” Padget said of Vansice. “She didn’t force anything. She took the open gaps and made the little runners.”

Baxter (15-1, 9-0) shot 50 percent from the floor, which allowed it to win despite missing 10 free throws and committing 20 turnovers.

Elie Tuhn came into the game as the Bolts’ leading scorer but was held to just two points. She did have seven rebounds and six assists.

“That’s been the mark of our team this year,” Padget said. “They like to feed the hot hand. I have had selfless players before. This is the most selfless team I have ever coached.”

Merrin Ziesman added four points, six rebounds and four steals off the bench and Maddie Pierce chipped in four rebounds and three assists.

Reagan Franzen came into the game averaging nearly 20 points per game for the Spartans. She led C-M with 21 points, while Erica Houge was better than her scoring average with 14 points. Alexis Houge scored five points, which was six points below her season average.

The Spartans were held to 30 percent shooting and they made only 3-of-18 from 3-point range. C-M missed seven free throws and committed 17 turnovers.

“Defense won this game,” Meyer said. “They are a good team. We knew if we were going to win, it had to be with defense. We focused on that a lot in practice.

“It was a heartbreaker last year losing by one. We really wanted this one.”

Notes: These two teams will play again on Saturday in Maxwell, making up a game that was postponed earlier this season. … Padget gave a lot of credit to his assistant coaches — Dan Tuhn, Kyle Krampe and Aaron Shanks — after the win. He has had two separate stints away from the team this year, the latest one being for 14 days while recovering from an illness. “They did a lot of prep and watched a lot of film,” Padget said.