Farmington Tigers Rally Late to Defeat Sabers Girls Basketball at Home
By Bill Schleper
The Sabers looked to be in it until they weren’t. The Sabers (0-5 conf., 2-9, overall) took on what looked to be a beatable Farmington Tigers (2-4 conf., 8-5 overall) team on Tuesday night at Shakopee High School.
The Tigers started off hot and jumped out to an 8-0 lead before Junior Guard Sadie Hall put in her first of her game high 25 points. The Sabers picked away for much of the first half, and with the score 21-19 had a chance to tie the game with a layup, but after the ball rolled out, the Tigers began to expand their lead with a series of buckets. The Sabers showed fight and pulled within a bucket after Hall hit nothing but net on a 3-pointer, finally tying the game as Hall connected on all three of her free throws after being fouled on a 3-point shot with just over a minute and a half remaining in the first half. Farmington Sophomore Gianna Carpentier broke the tie with a layup, and then hit one of two free throws to put the Tigers back on top at the halfway point, 34-31. Sadie Hall had 22 of the Sabers’ 31 points in the first half.
Alexis Breeden opened the scoring for the Sabers in the second half with a bucket and a three, giving the hometown team their first lead of the game at 36-34. The lead was short-lived, as the Tigers’ Senior Ali Simonson dropped in a pair of free throws at the 16:25 mark, followed by another bucket by Carpentier. But Junior Izzy Runk popped in a 3-pointer to reclaim the lead for the Sabers 39-38, with under 14 minutes to play, in what looked to become a nail-biter. After a Farmington basket, Sabers’ Freshman, Ellie Quast tied the ballgame at 41 each at the 10:55 mark. But the Sabers wouldn’t score again for the next nine-plus minutes, and Farmington went on to defeat the Sabers by a final score of 59-44.
Sadie Hall led all scorers with 25 points. She scored 22 of those points in the first half, and then Farmington’s defense locked Hall down until the final 3 points of the game for the Sabers were scored on an and-one after Hall scored a bucket and was fouled with just a minute and a half remaining in the game.
The Sabers will lick their wounds and come back to fight another day when they take on the Fighting Irish from Rosemount High School (2-2 conf., 6-5 overall) on Friday night, January 10th at 7:00 p.m. at Shakopee High School.
