Hanson gets past Ethan in District 11B

The Hanson girls’ basketball team weathered a storm early in its District 11B semifinal game against Ethan.

The Beavers were trailing 9-3 after the first six minutes of the game and seemingly had no answer for Ethan’s Darbi Gustafson and Whitney Endres, who combined for their team’s first nine points.

But then Hanson guard Cassidy Graham got hot and the rest of the Beavers followed suit.

Graham scored 14 points in the first half and Hanson went on a 22-5 run in the second quarter to take a 17-point halftime lead. That led Hanson to a 50-40 victory over the Rustlers Tuesday night at the Corn Palace in Mitchell. “I was really proud of our kids. They kept their poise for the most part,” Hanson coach Jim Bridge said. “We missed a couple easy shots under the basket early on. Then we had a couple of turnovers. But our kids didn’t let up and they were probably a little bit nervous.”

Along with Graham’s big first-half performance, the Beavers got six first-half points from Kynedi Cheeseman, who hit a big three during the run.

Cheeseman finished with 14 points in the game, while Graham scored a game-high 24.

The Beavers never really stopped Gustafson and Endres, but they were able to slow down the duo offensively.

Hanson had one player in front of Gustafson and one player behind her to keep her from receiving the ball in the paint. When the sophomore forward did touch the ball down low, a host of Beaver defenders crashed down with help-defense.

Gustafson finished the game with 15 points and 16 rebounds and Endres had 13 points and eight rebounds.

“The second quarter just got away from us,” Ethan coach Scott Giblin said. “We were playing good defense and doing the things we needed to do, and then we just let it get away. They really have a bunch of different kids they can throw at you defensively. They had three or four different girls there to defend Darbi.”

Giblin got a technical foul in the fourth quarter on a jump ball call that he thought should have been a foul. Ethan was down 11 points with two minutes to go when Giblin got the technical.

With the win, Hanson (19-2) advances to the District 11B championship Friday in the Corn Palace. Ethan finishes its season 16-5.

H 5 31 41 50

E 9 14 28 40

Tags: sports, updates, basketball, alexandria, ethan