Ipswich girls stop Patriots at home

The Ipswich girls' basketball team improved to 2-0 with a convincing 51-30 win over Hitchcock-Tulare here Saturday.

The visitors sort of stayed with the Tigers in the early going, trailing only 11-9 despite a Halle Heinz buzzer-beater. But the IHS contingent came out firing on all cylinders with an 18-2 edge in the second stanza.

Ipswich's initial double-figure lead was 21-9 thanks to a Bailey Pitz trey.

And after leading 29-11 at the half Ipswich also won the third-quarter scoring battle 14-8 and coasted to the win.

Heinz scored exactly 23 points, matching her opening game scoring effort. This time she also included one trey. She scored 12 of her points in the first half, followed by Chesney Olivier with 10 points, eight of which were also in the first half. Next in their scoring ledger was Katie Bierman with nine points, while Halie Feldman scored six points and Pitz that three-ball.

Katelyn Schroeder led the Patriots with 11 points. Ashley Masat added eight points.

Ipswich shot 21-55 from the floor including the pair of treys and was 7-14 in free throw tries.

The visitors were only 12-51 there, featuring three treys. They had a 3-11 free throw effort.

Ipswich obtained a 42-38 rebounding lead paced by Pitz with seven boards and Lindsey Grabowska with six.

The Tigers sustained 10 turnovers and H-T, 16. Ipswich had 11 steals paced by Heinz with three. Ipswich also had 11 assists, led by Heinz and Pitz with three each.

The Tigers were scheduled to play a girl/boy doubleheader in Eureka facing North Central on Dec. 15. Then the girls would go on the road to play Langford Area on Dec. 18, to Webster for a doubleheader on Dec. 19, and to Waubay to meet Waubay/Summit on Dec. 22.