A career-high for Haylee Stokes is too much for Forest City, as they fall in their state tournament debut.
Forest City knew Haylee Stokes was going to be a problem. The Minnesota State commit needed little time to make her mark, hitting a three-point basket on the opening tip in just 33 seconds and giving her team an early boost. However, Forest City wasn’t going down easy and fought back multiple times, changing things up to try and slow her down. However, the junior wouldn’t be denied for a second straight year.
A theme for Forest City is to keep going no matter the competition or deficit, and the Indians keep things interesting in the first half despite 15 first-half turnovers. Other than those miscues that turned in ELC points, Forest City and ELC were pretty even in the opening 16 minutes but saw the Indians down 34-21 at the break.
Forest City was unphased shooting in a new environment and shot 47 percent from the floor in the opening half, just a couple of percentage points behind their opponents – ELC, however, was getting more opportunities.
ELC led from start to finish and scored 30 points off the 23 Forest City turnovers in the contest. As they did all season, Forest City won the rebounding battle, grabbing five more than ELC. Forest City also had double the points off 2nd chance opportunities than ELC, outscoring them 12 -6.
ELC only needed three of the six players to score in the contest. To go along with Stokes’s 44 points (just five off Audi Crooks’ tournament record), Rylee Yager scored eight points, and Hillary Ruschy scored nine.
Junior Colette Loges’s 12 points led Forest City, and Emma Anderson – playing in her record-breaking 93 career game- had another 11. Hayden Brown is the answer to a trivia question; she scored Forest City’s first-ever state tournament bucket and had seven total points. Classmate Lexi Iserand had another seven points, while Jenna Dontje came off the bench for six.
Forest City ends the season 21-4, a five-player school record. ELC, the top seed, now 23-2 on the season, will play in the state semifinals on Thursday.
In-game players – Forest City
02 Loges,Colette * 4-8 for 12
03 Anderson, Emma * 5-10 for 11
04 Warren, Bethany * 2-2 for 4
14 Brown, Hayden * 3-13 for 8
20 Isebrand,Lexi * 2-3 7
05 Jerome, Jaden
10 Holmes, Zoey
32 Giesen, Brenin
34 Dontje,Jenna 3-3 6
40 Seglem, Dru
Team Stats
FG 19-42 45.2%
from 3 3-14 21.4%
FT 6-12 50.0%
In-game players – ELC
05 Dunlavy, Tatum * 0-5 for 0
20 Yager, Rylee * 4-6 for 8
22 Anderson, Jasey * 0-2 for 0
23 Stokes, Haylee * 15-24 for 44
34 Ruschy, Hillary * 2-11 4-4 – FT 9
03 Schiltz,Cara 0-1 for 0
Team Stats
FG – 21-49 42.9%
from 3 – 5-20 25.0%
FT – 14-18 77.8%
