Wolves snap 3-game losing streak

The IKM-Manning Wolves girls basketball team got back in the win column Thursday night on the road with a 48-39 victory over the Boyer Valley Bulldogs for their ninth win of the season.
“It feels good,” said Wolves Junior Anna Stangl. “We’ve been working for this win for a while. It feels good to get it under our belts for tomorrow night.”
The Wolves opened the game on a 5-0 run, with the first shot of the game coming from Freshman Keagan Eischeid on a layup, followed by a 3-pointer from Stangl. Senior Bulldog Mariah Falkena answered back with a 3-point shot as both teams got locked into a seesaw battle with the Wolves leading 12-10 at the end of the quarter.
Stangl began the second quarter with a layup before Falkena answered back with a mid-range shot. Falkena made a layup, which was followed by a 12-0 Wolves run to close out the half leading 27-14.
“We just had to be aggressive,” Stangl said. “Get our hands on all the balls we could. We had to take away the backside. That was a problem in the first half, but we got that covered and came back.”
The Bulldogs came out of the gate in the third quarter on a 9-2 run, cutting the Wolves lead back to single digits. A scary moment occurred when Wolves Senior Laynie Gawley went down and didn’t return for the remainder of the game.
“She [Gawley] landed on her hip,” said Wolves Head Coach Gene Rasmussen. “Hopefully she’ll be okay and ready to go for tomorrow night.”
Following Gawley’s exit, Stangl made two more clutch shots to close out the third quarter, including a mid-range fade away and a 3-pointer putting her team up 37-27 heading into the final quarter.
“They [Bulldogs] left me outside a lot on the 3-point line and normally teams don’t do that,” Stangl said. “I didn’t hit all of them, but I had a lot more 3-point shots than I normally do.”
The Wolves got contributions up-and-down the lineup in the fourth quarter, starting with a layup from Eischeid, a 3-pointer from Junior McKenna Benton, and a steal from Senior Taylor Beckendorf, which turned into a layup forcing a timeout from Bulldog head coach Tyler Sharp.
Following the timeout, the Bulldogs went on an 8-3 run, but it wasn’t enough, as the Wolves won by nine. They won’t rest for long, and will return to their home floor Friday night hosting the 6-12 AHSTW Vikings. The Vikings are led by Sophomore Bella Lamp averaging 7.6 points and 1.8 assists per game, along with Sophomore Addison Carroll averaging 6.5 rebounds per game.
“It’s going to be a battle,” Rasmussen said. “You have to be ready to play every game, and so we’ll see what happens.”