No. 2 Neuqua Valley committed 25 turnovers, made only 12-of-44 attempts from the field and didn’t score in the final three minutes of its game Thursday at Bartlett.
But all that didn’t matter for the Wildcats, who walked off the court with a 27-26 girls basketball victory over the previously unbeaten Hawks in the Upstate Eight game.
The hero of this game wound up being a player who scored only two points. But Lisa Sykora, the senior guard who had transferred from Downers North, scored them off an offensive rebound with three minutes left. Those were the last points scored in this game.
“It feels really good,” Sykora said. “We knew this was going to be a tough game. We had to focus on the defense and get each rebound.”
She also had a steal with 1 minute 50 seconds left and rebounded Bartlett’s last shot, an outside jumper by Lindsay Schrader with two seconds to go.
Lindsay Wisdom-Hylton, Neuqua Valley’s 6-foot-3-inch junior who has led the Wildcats Downstate the last two seasons, came up big in the third quarter. Trailing 22-19 with 3:02 left in that period, Wisdom-Hylton scored three consecutive baskets to give her team a 25-22 lead.
She finished with a game-high 12 points along with six rebounds and three steals as the Wildcats improved to 8-0, 2-0 in conference.
“Lindsay is struggling a bit with her shot, and we’ve lost a little bit of confidence,” Neuqua coach Mike Williams said. “But defensively we’re OK.”
Schrader, Bartlett’s 6-foot sophomore, was coming off a 26-point, 20-rebound game against Lake Park. But hounded by Neuqua guard Erin McDowell, she struggled a bit, finishing with 10 points and eight rebounds.
“If our first loss had to come against somebody, it might as well be a close game against a top team,” said Bartlett coach Denise Sarna, whose Hawks are 6-1, 2-1.
