Huskies unable to complete comeback, fall 52-41 to Rochester Mayo

As the race to be atop of the Big Nine Conference heats up, the Owatonna girls basketball team played host to Rochester Mayo Tuesday night.
After the first half, it was looking like a game to forget for the Huskies.
Despite managing to claw back from an 18-point deficit at the half, the Huskies were unable to complete the comeback, falling to the Spartans 52-41 Tuesday night at OHS.
“We started off not really as sharp as I would have liked us to start off and we missed some defensive assignments and just were as aggressive on offense and looking for the things we needed to look for,” commented head coach Lindsey Hugstad-Vaa. “But, Second half we came back and played with intensity, hit some shots; we knew that they were all over us, get down inside and the girls played aggressively.”
The first half could arguably have been the worst half of basketball Owatonna has played this season. On their first ten possessions, the Huskies would fail to record a basket on seven of their attempts, three of which were turnovers. Those turnovers were quickly converted into points as the Spartans built a 16-6 lead midway through the first half.
Some of the causes for the stagnant offense from Owatonna was the smothering zone defense that the Spartans implemented early. Although, it wasn’t the smothering defense that was causing the troubles, but rather the poor decisions made by the Huskies.
Of their seven first-half turnovers, four of which came off of dangerous passes that were tipped. If a pass wasn’t tipped in the zone, Owatonna’s shooters were forced to take contested shots, often bouncing it off the backboard.
In fact, no Husky scored more than five points in the half with junior Sydney Schultz scoring a team-high four. Mayo on the other hand had three players near double figures with Olivia Korngable leading all scorers with 10. Korngable was held to just five points in the second half, leading all scorers with a game-high 15 points. 
“They definitely play good defense, but there are things that are open in it; screening the zone and sealing, pass faking so we don’t sail it over somebody’s head. We normally don’t do that, so we need to get used to playing against pressure defense and adjusting,” added Hugstad-Vaa.
The Spartans finished the half on a 23-8 scoring spurt, to include a layup with two seconds left in the half that gave them a 32-14 lead heading into the break.
To start the second half, Owatonna – Schultz in particular – were much sharper in all aspects of the game.The junior exploded in the second half, scoring a team-high 10 points after recording just four in the first half of play.  Six of those ten, came within the first minute of the half, as Owatonna started to slowly chip away at the lead. Schultz finished the contest with a team-high 14 points. 
Owatonna would outscore the Spartans 27-20 in the second half, in large part due to its sound defense. After forcing just one turnover in the first half, the Huskies’ defense would create nine turnovers in part of an 8-2 run midway through the half.
“We had a kumbaya session at halftime and it’s like, ‘okay you’ve already embarrassed yourselves. It’s already down by double-digits,” mentioned the Huskies head coach. “Now we have to find what kind of team are we.”
Down by 14 with just under two minutes left, the Huskies faced the clock more than anything as the Spartans drastically slowed their possession to just circulating the ball. Managing to take advantage of a few missed attempts at the charity stripe, the Huskies finished the contest on a 7-3 run.