Cardinals rally from down 10 points

NEW BREMEN - The New Bremen girls' basketball team dominated the fourth quarter to erase a 10-point deficit and rally to defeat the Parkway Panthers 60-52 on Thursday night in Midwest Athletic Conference action at Cardinal Gymnasium.

Parkway closed the third quarter with an 11-0 run and entered the fourth quarter with a seemingly comfortable 44-34 advantage.

The fourth quarter belonged to New Bremen as the Cardinals outscored the Panthers 26-8 in the final eight minutes.

New Bremen's Julie Brown was able to tie the score at 46-46 at the 4:02 mark of the fourth quarter before Parkway took the lead one last time at 48-46. The Cardinals took the lead for good after Amber Paul converted on a three-point play to put New Bremen on top 49-48 with 2:38 remaining in the game. Hannah Holdren hit four free throws down the stretch to vault the Cardinals to the victory.

"I'm happy with the way we played," said New Bremen's head coach Randy Eckert. "We bounced back from being down. The last five or six games we've played good. We shot well tonight, (which was) good to see."

"In certain aspects we looked pretty good," said Parkway's head coach Jeff Kallas. "(But) passing was our downfall. We kind of lost our composure and just couldn't get it back (in the fourth quarter)."

The lead switched hands back-and-forth through the first three quarters of play. Parkway was on to 12-8 after the first quarter before New Bremen rallied for a 22-21 advantage by halftime. The Panthers controlled play in the third quarter, outscoring the Cardinals 23-12 for a 10-point advantage going into the final eight minutes of action.

"In the third quarter we got impatient against their press," said Eckert. "(But) we made free throws down the stretch, which we haven't done, but we knocked them down tonight."

Parkway's Becca Harshman scored 21 points to lead all scorers while Holdren netted 12 points to pace the Cardinals. Parkway's Haley Roehm pulled down a game-high 17 rebounds in a losing cause.