Girls Basketball: Z-M upsets Pine Island again

Little less than a year ago, the Zumbrota-Mazeppa upset top-seeded Pine Island in the Section 1AA tournament. On Monday, it took five overtimes but the Cougars got the best of the Panthers again.

Z-M won 47-45, getting a 15-foot jump shot from Amber Jentsch with just more than a minute left in the fifth overtime for the game-winner.

“It was a huge win for us,” Cougars’ head coach Scott Paukert said. “It’s been kind of a struggled (this season). Our intensity level hasn’t always been there but with Pine Island, we had some success early and that kind of fueled it.”

The Panthers defeated Z-M 50-24 when the two teams met earlier in the season but the Cougars were able to slow the Pine Island offense with a zone defense. In the first meeting, the Panthers also controlled the rebounding margin and on Monday only held a 18-16 advantage.

“I thought that was the key,” Paukert said. “We rebounded pretty well all night long.”

Z-M (9-12, 5-5 HVL Blue) also received a great first half from Laura Brunner, who scored all of her game-high 15 points before halftime. The Cougars led 27-21 at the break.

“Laura Brunner, in the first half, really carried us,” Paukert said. “She kind of got us going. We got to the point where we believed we had a chance.”

The game was tied 40-40 at the end of regulation, 43-43 after one overtime and 45-45 into the third overtime. Neither team scored in the third and fourth overtimes with Pine Island wasting minutes off the block both times and holding the ball for one final shot.

The Panthers’ loss drops them to 18-5 and 8-2 in the conference, a half-game behind fifth-ranked (1A) Goodhue (19-5, 9-2 HVL Blue) in the Hiawatha Valley League Blue Division.

Pine Island made just 5 of 31 3-pointers Monday. Alison Newton led the Panthers with 10 points.

Brunner also had a team-high eight rebounds and three steals in the win. Kalli Paukert had nine points, four rebounds and two steals while Alyssa Stehr tallied seven points and two rebounds for Z-M.

The Cougars travel to face Lake City Tuesday.

Tags: girls basketball, sports, prep, zumbrota, mazeppa