Cold Panther shooting and the hot early hand of Violet Otto sparked Prescott to a 58-42 win over Ellsworth Friday evening.

In a game that was boosted up an hour because of threatening winter weather, the Cardinals picked up an important road win that keeps them locked in a first-place Middle Border Conference tie with Baldwin-Woodville. Both teams have 5-1 marks, and Ellsworth is right behind at 4-2.

Prescott’s Lila Posthuma led all scorers with 18 points, with Otto right behind her at 16.

With both teams off to a somewhat sluggish start, Otto went to work from behind the arc. She drained a trio of three pointers in the early going that put the Panthers on their heels.

Avery Pattridge and Rory Zuehlsdorf each had nine points for Prescott, while Leah French added six.

Senior sharpshooter Molly Janke paced the Panther effort with 15 points. Even more impressive were her passes into the paint. She finished with six assists and 12 rebounds. Maria Harrington worked hard inside against the Cardinals, finishing with 10 points. Ava Brookshaw scored nine, Kayla Kressin had six and Aubrey Wittenberg added two. Kressin sparked the Ellsworth effort early with her aggressive play. She had three steals and nine rebounds in the game.

The game started as a defensive battle and Ellsworth couldn’t seem to buy a basket. At about the 11-minute mark, Prescott was up just 5-0 when Cardinal Coach Owen Hamilton called a 30-second timeout after his team scrambled for a loose ball on the Ellsworth end. When play resumed Otto drained her second.

On the next possession, Posthuma found Pattridge with a beautiful pass that resulted in two more points.

Otto wasn’t done. This time she pulled up from several feet behind the three-point line and swished her shot to put Prescott in charge, 13-0.

Harrington got the Panthers on the board with a bucket inside and they were able to close the game to within nine after Kressin scored twice on offensive rebound putbacks and Janke scored inside.

The Cardinals didn’t let the Panthers get any closer than 17-8.

The teams traded hoops, with Posthuma and Zuehlsdorf scoring for the Cardinals and Kressin and Brookshaw answering on the Ellsworth end.

Otto put an exclamation point on her big first half with another three from the right corner, followed up by one from Posthuma.

The threes were raining down in Ellsworth, as Janke connected from long range.

French then did it the old-fashioned way. She was fouled inside, scored and connected on her free throw to give the Cardinals a 13-point lead.

Posthuma added a bucket to make it 32-17 Cardinals at the half. The Panthers didn’t have an answer for her, as she hit another three early in the second half to build the Cardinal lead to 18.

For Prescott, the win evened its overall record at 7-7 after a tough non-conference slate designed to make the team ready for Middle Border play and beyond. The Cardinals played several games against division one teams in early season play, and they appear to be battle ready.

Posthuma lead with a 16 point per game average and more than nine rebounds per game. Otto, a sophomore, averages 12.4 points per game.

The Cardinals host winless Osceola Thursday night and have a busy week. They have a big non-conference test at River Falls Monday and travel to Somerset (3-3 in the MBC) Tuesday.

Ellsworth is 9-5 overall on the season. They travel to play 1-5 St. Croix Central Thursday, Jan. 18 and are at 3-2 Altoona Tuesday, Jan. 23.

Coach Jason Janke looked back on his team’s progress at about the midpoint of the season.

“We are like a few teams, I think wishing we had a game or two ‘back’ to have a ‘do-over,’ but at the same time, we've won some very hard-fought games and played some good basketball at times. When we get off to a good start, we've had good luck being right in every game until the end, but we have had too many games with early-game droughts. We are working hard to rectify that as the midpoint hits us this week. Our league is definitely a tremendous challenge this year, as any team can beat any other on a given night, and that's evident by the close scores, generally, across the board. There are very good players and coaches,” he said.

He was pleased his team continued to fight against Prescott when the shots weren’t falling.

“I think the positive take-away for us is how hard we continued to battle despite our cold-shooting vs their hot-shooting. They hit six three-pointers in the first half to our one and finished with a significant advantage in that area,” said Janke. “We rebounded the ball quite well and got some very good shots. We can't be ‘down’ about anything at this point. We have a group of resilient players who work very hard on defense and are very capable on offense. We just have to continue to develop confidence in our shooting. We work on that every day.”