The Ellsworth girls’ basketball team split their games last week with a 51-40 win at home against Altoona on Tuesday, Jan. 24, and a 51-37 loss on the road against Amery on Friday, Jan. 27.

The Panthers outscored the Lady Rails 3121 in the second half with the momentum that came from a buzzer-beating three-pointer by Ellsworth junior Molly Janke, who buried the shot going into the halftime intermission. The deep three gave Ellsworth its first lead of the game at 20-19.

With a University of Minnesota Women’s Assistant in the building to watch Gopher recruit junior Alyssa Wirth of Altoona, the crowd was going at a fever pitch throughout the early going.

A key to the first half was stellar freethrow shooting by the home team in the low-scoring affair, as the Panthers drained eight of 10 shots for nearly half their points. Another important aspect was the trial and error of Ellsworth’s interior defense as the six-foot-five Wirth went for eight first-half points, drawing three fouls on Panther defensive stalwart, junior Kayla Kressin.

“Kayla getting three fouls in the first half was certainly not ideal,” Ellsworth head coach Jason Janke said. “Our kids kept working, never got negative and figured out a way to compete inside, despite the size differential. Jillian Griggs came in and really found another way to defend Altoona inside. She doesn’t have Kayla’s length, but her fire and grit make up for some of that. Jill really battled in there and got some critical rebounds.”

The second half was a see-saw affair early, as the Rails and Panthers traded the lead as the score was in the 20s. The Panthers’ defense forced some bad passes, and Janke found two consecutive stray passes, turning a 30-29 deficit into an Ellsworth lead. At the eight-minute mark, Ellsworth clinging to a 35-31 lead, junior Aubrey Wittenberg squared up from the right corner and hit a critical three-pointer and the Panthers never looked back.

The Rails did not give up, closing the lead to under four on several occasions, but once they were forced to foul late, Ellsworth drained nine of 10 free throws down the stretch for the 51-40 victory.

“Our ball security and free throw shooting in the last six minutes was excellent,” Janke said. “When you rebound like we did later in the second half and play with the strong offensive will that we did, you make yourself hard to defeat.”

Molly Janke led the Panthers with 28 points, nine rebounds and four steals, while Kressin added eight rebounds, four points and outstanding interior defense. Sophomore Morgan Halverson got in on the scoring with six and snared seven rebounds as well.

After knocking off Altoona at home, the Panthers went on the road to square off against the Amery Warriors, who began the game about the way they would end up finishing it on their home floor last Friday night – draining three-pointers.

With four three-pointers in the first half and three more long ones in the second, the Warriors scored over half of what their opponents did from outside the arc. Amery senior guard Mia Brotzel hit four trifectas on the evening and the Panthers were 0-14 as a team from deep.

That three-point percentage was a tale of the tape for the Ellsworth squad that evening, as they went into the locker room at halftime down 24-18. The Panthers did little to help themselves in the second half as Amery led by double-digits the entire second half.

“We played poorly tonight,” coach Janke stated. “That doesn’t begin to describe our shooting tonight. It’s one of those games that you have to deal with at some point most seasons you coach high school basketball, one of those nights when the ball just wouldn’t go in for us. We’d get a three-ball to look perfect from release and it’d rattle in-n-out on us, they’d have something similar and it would drop. No one to blame, no lack of effort, just a poor performance by the purple squad on this night.”

One frustrating thing for the Panthers was the rebounding battle, which was also won by Amery. Fortunately, the Panthers have another shot at the Warriors on Tuesday, Jan. 31, due to a postponement being rescheduled prior to the boys’ game the same evening.

Ellsworth junior Maria Harrington and Molly Janke each tallied eight points on the night, while Halverson and Kressin followed with seven and eight respectively.

The Panthers get their shot at redemption on Tuesday night with tip-off slated for 7 p.m. at Ellsworth High School.