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St. Henry's Alexis Buschur (2) tries to get around New Bremen's Sophia Tangeman.
NEW BREMEN - A 12-0 New Bremen run in the fourth quarter was able to put a dent in St. Henry's lead, but thanks to some sticky defense early on, the Redskins had plenty of padding.
St. Henry held New Bremen to just three field goals and eight points in the second and third quarters combined, opened up a 24-point lead in the third quarter, and held on for a 44-32 victory Thursday night at the Nest.
The Redskins remain unbeaten in the early going, improving to 2-0 in the Midwest Athletic Conference and 4-0 overall. The Cardinals slip to 1-1 and 1-4.
Forcing five early turnovers and turning them into points allowed St. Henry to take control of the game early.
Molly Wendel hit a couple early buckets and Karlee Buschur bombed a trey with 3:45 left in the opening quarter to give the 'Skins a 13-2 lead.
"Set the tone with our defense and then get out in transition is what we tried to do early," St. Henry coach Nate Uhlenhake said. "But at least four of their points in the first quarter came off of offensive rebounds, so we've got to make sure we are consistently boxing out and rebounding. We have room to grow there."
Halle Kuenning and Maria Kramer combined for eight points to pull the Cards to within six, 15-9, but Ava Homan hit a three-pointer to put St. Henry up 18-9 at the first break.
New Bremen's Allie Bornhorst (34) shoots over St. Henry's Paige Bergman.
New Bremen went the first six minutes of the second quarter without a field goal as the Redskins built a 25-10 lead. Addy Homan closed out the first half with a hoop and harm three-point play for a 30-12 margin.
St. Henry scored the first six points of the second half forcing New Bremen coach Stephanie Wheeler to use a timeout. The Cards would score the next five points, but still trailed, 39-17, heading into the fourth quarter.
After trading buckets to open the final period, New Bremen ran off 12 unanswered points to pull within 41-31 with 1:34 left to play.
And even though it was too little, too late, Wheeler was still pleased with the way her team kept fighting.
"I don't know we just took a timeout and said we need to compete," she said. "We started running our stuff a little bit, stopped forcing the ball when it's not there, and just played hard."
New Bremen's Maria Kramer (3) tries to block the shot of St. Henry's Karlee Buschur.
St. Henry featured a balanced scoring attack, led by Karlee Buschur with 11 points. Morgan Baumer, Wendel, and Ava Homan all had seven points each.
"This group is special in that we can rely on anybody on any given night to step up," Uhlenhake said. "The girls have been that way their whole careers. They're not worrying about who's scoring the most points. It's fun to coach when people are selfless and they're willing to show up and put in work every night."
Kuenning paced the Cardinals with 13 points and 12 rebounds. Kramer chipped in with nine.
"We've lost some close games so far, but I think we're getting better every game," Wheeler said. "We're getting ourselves into games even when we get down early. We seem to be a second half team and need to figure out how to get started earlier."
New Bremen hosts Bluffton on Saturday and travel to Versailles next Thursday. The Redskins are at Anna on Saturday and home with Minster on Thursday.
