Prep girls basketball: Ebeling's early 3s propel Windsor past Sacred Heart for Kaysinger tourney title

Just like with his squad after a heartbreaking 56-52 loss to Sacred Heart on Jan. 9, Windsor coach Brad Forrest’s faith in Taylor Ebeling never wavered.

The 6-foot junior had struggled with her outside shot since Christmas, but Forrest never once discouraged her to stop shooting.

“He always told me (the) shot would come back,” Ebeling said.

The timing couldn’t have been more perfect.

Ebeling knocked down back-to-back-to-back 3-pointers in the first quarter as part of a game-high 15-point effort, and the Greyhounds pulled out a 45-39 win Friday night in the championship of the Kaysinger Conference Girls Basketball Tournament presented by W-K Chevrolet.

“A few weeks ago, she hadn’t been getting them in and she said, ‘Coach, what’s wrong, what’s wrong, what’s wrong,?’ ” Forrest said. “I was like "You’re not getting it there.' Tonight I told her before the game, ‘Use your legs, get into it' and she drilled three big ones in the first quarter.”

“I was on fire in practice but I didn’t know if it would carry over to the game,” said Ebeling, who also pulled down 10 rebounds. “But I was just on fire in the first quarter.”

Ebeling’s three uncontested 3-pointers from the left wing led to a 17-11 first-quarter lead for the Greyhounds (16-4), who have won nine straight since that early January meeting with the Gremlins.

The Greyhounds also snapped an 11-game win streak against Kaysinger Conference opponents for the Gremlins (15-5).

But the Greyhounds came out a different team Friday night, showing the same energy that led to a Kaysinger Conference  regular-season title last year.

“We’ve come a long, long way, a really long way,” Forrest said. “... Last year we made the giant leap and this year we continued it on. It’s exciting.”

The Gremlins, whose four-game win streak was also snapped, still have a lot to be excited for despite losing in the Kaysinger Conference tournament for the third straight year.

If they finish off the regular season with wins over Stover and Northwest, they’ll win the conference regular-season title outright with an unblemished 9-0 mark. And that would only serve as momentum for districts, a venue where they and the Greyhounds are almost assured of the top two seeds.

“Going into the game, we told the girls there’s still a lot of things in front of us and we can’t let a loss be a collapse to our season,” Sacred Heart coach Shawn Bestgen said. “As far as whether we get a rematch in districts with them, it’s going to be a tough road regardless.”

And to face that tough road he’ll need big contributions from Erica Stone and Johannah Hohne, who were held in check Friday night.

The senior pair, who combined for 39 points in the January win over Windsor, scored a collective 22 points. Stone garnered a double-double with 10 points and 10 boards, and Hohne added two 3-pointers and 12 points as the pair struggled to catch their form for an offense that committed 14 turnovers and shot 27 percent from the floor.

“We just couldn’t knock down our shots and they did,” Bestgen said.

Even so, the Gremlins only trailed 27-23 after a 3-pointer from Kaitlyn Sunnarborg sent the teams into the locker rooms at the half.

The lead remained no more than seven and no less than three in the third, which ended with Windsor clinging to a 34-29 lead.

But Danielle Riggs scored six of her 10 points in the fourth and Bailey Rollins, who had 11 points, knocked down three big free throws to keep the lead  in the waning minutes.

The biggest free throw, however, came from Shelby Williams, who grabbed a club-best 13 rebounds. With her team clinging to a one-possession, 42-39 lead after Hohne missed a 3-pointer at the other end, the 6-foot freshman hit a free throw with 25.5 seconds to seal the win.