Golden Eagles escape with victory against Huron

ABERDEEN — The Golden Eagles saw what was once a 13-point lead early in the fourth quarter dwindle to just a single point late in the fourth, but emerged from Monday’s twice-rescheduled battle with Huron with a 57-54 victory.
It was Central’s second win in three days, but it didn’t come easily.
The Golden Eagles gave up 14 offensive rebounds to the Tigers as a whole and 28 points to Huron’s Havyn Heinz. Sami Shoultz also put the ball on the floor and scored some easy buckets for the Tigers, who seemed determined to upend Central’s fledgling confidence, born out of a Saturday night win over Watertown.
And the Golden Eagles bent as far as they could under that pressure. Cassidy Gough and Emma Yeske spent much of the third quarter watching from the sidelines, plagued with foul trouble.
In their stead, however, rose a supporting cast led by Brooklyn Kusler in the first half, Jianna Gellhaus and Kyra Griese in the third quarter, and Abby Kopecky in the fourth. The Golden Eagles bent plenty, but didn’t break.
“It’s good for our kids,” said Central coach Dawn Seiler of the win. “The thing I was pleased about was that we had so many kids step up at different times. Kusler owned the first half. They had to pay a lot of attention to her that second half. Then Abby stepped in that fourth quarter, Kyra Griese for a couple minutes in that third quarter, just played so hard and made a lot of things happen.”
Kusler scored 15 of her 19 points in the first half, staking Central to a slim 24-22 lead. A back-and-forth third eventually gave way to a little Golden Eagle run featuring 3-pointers from Griese and Jianna Gellhaus and a runner in the lane from Melanie Jacobs — her only two points of the night. Gellhaus continued the torrent with an early fourth-quarter trey, and Central held a 49-36 lead with six and a half minutes to play.

But Huron wasn’t done either.
Led by Heinz and Shoultz, though those two were far from alone, the Tigers cut Central’s lead to six. Then four. Then one.
But every Tiger advance, it seemed, was met with a key bucket from the Golden Eagles, most often in the form of Kopecky, who came through with clutch pull-ups from the wing.
“Kopecky hit some tough twos,” said Huron coach Tim Buddenhagen. “We were going to give that up. We had to give up something because we couldn’t give up anything inside to (Cassidy) Gough, (Emma Yeske) and Kusler. It worked for a while, until they started hitting those threes. Kopecky had a nice night. She hit some tough shots. Give her some credit.”
“Abby had to sit out most of a game (with an injury), and I think she’s letting me know she doesn’t want to sit out,” Seiler said. “It’s hard to take her off the floor when she plays like that.”
Still, Huron wouldn’t let the Golden Eagles pull away twice, getting the ball back with 15 seconds remaining and the length of the floor to go, trailing by three. However, a corner 3 from Bella Shreeve bounced an inch short, skipping just over the opening, and the Tigers threw the ensuing offensive rebound out of bounds with half a second remaining.
“We missed some easy layups in the first half,” Buddenhagen said. “Some wide open ones. Their length bothers us a bit. We’re not the tallest team in the state, so we’ve got to pick and choose our times we go to the basket. But overall, I thought we played hard. We got after it, and we got back in the game.”
In addition to Heinz’ 28-point outburst, the Tigers got 10 points and 10 rebounds from Shoultz. Tenley Buddenhagen added another 10 points for Huron.
Kusler’s 19 points for Central was backed by Kopecky’s 16 points and six boards. Jianna Gellhaus had six points and six more rebounds for the Golden Eagles.
Central now heads to No. 3 Sioux Falls Lincoln and No. 4 Harrisburg Friday and Saturday, respectively.
Huron is home to face Brookings at 7 p.m. today.