Feb 5, 2025
Staff photo by Ari Selvey Buffalo Lake-Hector-Stewart’s Lily Hubin (5) takes a baseline jumper over New Ulm Cathedral’s Shay Wilfahrt (24) during a Tomahawk Division girls basketball game on Tuesday at Cathedral High School.
NEW ULM — Down 13 points with seven minutes to play, Buffalo Lake-Hector-Stewart scored 21 of the final 27 points of a Tomahawk-Valley Conference, Tomahawk Division girls basketball game against New Ulm Cathedral to win 56-54 on Monday.
“At halftime, we kind of had a wakeup call,” BLHS’s Lily Hubin said. “We beat them earlier this season, so we were like, ‘What’s happening, why aren’t our shots falling,’ things like that. We just decided then to leave it all out here. We got to wake up, we’ve got to play defense, we’ve got to execute our offense, which we weren’t doing right away. It was every possession we had to go get a stop on defense and then execute on offense down the floor.”
Hubin ended the game with 24 points, including the game-tying 3-pointer and the game-winning steal and tough finish in the final minute of play.
“Missing all those shots early this game, I just had to put that behind me and focus on my fundamentals,” Hubin said. “Just put all that behind me and just make these shots. There was really no other option.”
Hubin scored 15 in the second half after having a slow start in the first half. Also for the Mustangs, Jamie Novotny had 11 points, while Elizabeth Ovitt had 9 points.
“It was teamwork and locking down on defense,” Novotny said. “We had kind of a slow start with fouls and stuff, so just coming back in the second half to be strong was definitely what we needed.”
Cathedral had fallen to BLHS 50-36 earlier in the season on Jan. 3 and had a much stronger showing in Tuesday’s game, controlling the lead nearly the entire contest. However, strong shooting and execution by the Mustangs late stole the win away from the Greyhounds.
“They’re a good team, and they’ve got some good players,” Cathedral head coach Dave Wilfahrt said. “We tried to slow them down a little bit to keep them from scoring quickly, and I think we did a pretty good job with that. We just tried to take care of the ball and just couldn’t get it done in the end.”
Coach Wilfahrt said the team executed some things well and have come a long way since the two teams’ first matchup.
“We did a lot of good things,” he said. “I told the girls we’ll just show up to practice tomorrow and keep working because we’ve got another game Thursday. There’s no quit. They’re positive, so it will be good.”
Shay Wilfahrt led Cathedral with 18 points, while Jayde Altermatt had 17 points. Maddie Gilles, who missed the second half of the game with an apparent knee injury, scored 12 points on four 3-pointers.
Gilles hit her first 3-pointer to open the game, then Altermatt made both her free throws to take a 5-0 game. BLHS responded with a 7-0 run, with Ovitt hitting a 3-pointer, to take the lead, but another 3-pointer by Gilles gave the Greyhounds a 12-9 lead.
The teams traded buckets for several minutes, with Gilles canning her third 3-pointer to go up 22-17 before a BLHS timeout with 7:36 left in the first, then her fourth to force another timeout by the Mustangs at 5:28 to go up 25-17. BLHS responded with a 3 by Ovitt, but Shay Wilfahrt struck back with a 3 of her own. Shay Wilfahrt beat the halftime buzzer with a putback to put the Greyhounds up 33-26 at the break.
Cathedral continued to lead in the early second half, with a 3-pointer by Shay Wilfahrt putting giving the Greyhounds its first double-digit lead of the game, 38-28. The lead stayed around 10 for several minutes, with a 3-pointer by Ashlyn Hillesheim putting Cathedral up 48-35 as BLHS called a timeout with 7:03 to play.
Hubin hit her second 3 of the game after the timeout, starting the Mustangs’ comeback. Hubin scored off of her own steal to cut the lead to 48-40, and after Shay Wilfahrt and Olivia Macho pushed the Cathedral lead back out to 52-40, BLHS’s Jozlyn Kramer hit a 3-pointer and Ovitt made a layup to cut the lead down to 7. Three consecutive layups from Novotny trimmed the lead to just 52-51, but Shay Wilfahrt hit two free throws in the bonus to increase the advantage to 3.
Hubin hit a 3 from the left corner to tie the game up, then forced a turnover and finished over a host of Cathedral defenders to take a 56-54 lead. Cathedral missed the final shot of the game as the Mustangs celebrated the win.
BLHS (11-8, 6-7) hosts Springfield on Friday. Cathedral (4-17, 3-11) travels to Cedar Mountain on Thursday.
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