ELLSWORTH — Prescott took to the road to beat the Ellsworth Panthers in their house, drilling 10 threes to win 68-53 to kick off the final week of the regular season Feb. 18.

On Ellsworth’s senior night, the game kicked off with a wholesome moment. Senior Emma Brown, who has missed the entirety of the season due to injury, took the court again. Despite still being injured, Brown got the ball off the opening tip and launched it from deep but could not get it to fall. She collected the rebound and fired again, no good. With one more opportunity, Brown got a layup to fall as her teammates shared a smile. She exited the game as she is still navigating the injury recovery, bringing a moment the entire team will remember for some time to come. Ellsworth’s other seniors are Mykenna Gaard and Morgan Halverson.

After an 8-8 start, Prescott’s Izzy Thoen drained a three from the right wing to spark a run. Hot shooting from beyond the arc helped that lead increase to 20-13.

Jenna Stoltenburg and Halverson got Ellsworth going on the other end, and an Alivia Maher three tied the game again at 24 with 2:30 to play in the half.

A three-point festival broke out to end the half with Prescott’s Cadyn Hillebrand and Violet Otto joining Ellsworth’s Libby Groh for threes in the waning minutes of the half. Prescott came out of the half with a 35-29 lead.

“First half we controlled offensively pretty well, but defensively we weren’t really doing some of the stuff we had really talked about which is controlling the boards, taking away Morgan [Halverson], which is a much, much easier task said than done because she’s a beast down there,” Head Coach Owen Hamilton said.

That wild finish was nothing compared to what the teams had in store to open the second, as Rory Zuehlsdorf opened the half with a three, followed by an answer from Maher. Zuehlsdorf then banked a three in which Maher answered again. Zuehsldorf made yet another deep ball, which Halverson matched with an inside bucket.

Then, Prescott started to finally break things open, finding a double-digit lead they would cling to for the remainder of the game.

Zuehlsdorf finished with 26 points on 9-13 shooting and 5-7 from deep. Hamilton said she is a true spark plug player for the Cardinals, getting them going when they need it most. Otto had 16 points, eight assists and eight rebounds to go along with five steals and three blocks on the night. Otto reached 1,000 career points Feb. 7 against St. Croix Central, a rare feat on its own, but especially rare to accomplish as a junior.

Ellsworth got 16 from Halverson, 13 from Stoltenburg and 13 from Maher on the night.

With 10 made threes from the Cardinals, Hamilton said the team seemingly had an answer for every run. This will be important to maintain during the playoffs.

“That’s just kind of the perseverance, the grit we play with,” Hamilton said. “We always talk about basketball as a game of runs. You get punched in the mouth, how can you punch back? And I think we answered that question tonight.”

The feeds inside leading to kick outs to open perimeter players were what Hamilton liked to see the most.

“This game is just proof that we can knock down the shots, proof that we can do all the things we’ve worked on all year and kind of sticking it to a team that is a rivalry,” Hamilton said.

It was a first half “dog fight” which is what most playoff games will look like as every team throws out every last trick in their book.