Staff photo by Jake Olson: Martin County West's Emily Schettler (3) fights off a handful of Blue Earth Area defenders during the second half of Friday night's clash at the Blue Earth Area High School.

BLUE EARTH – A pull-up jumper and a last-second 3-point make from Blue Earth Area’s Ella Swanson erupted the home Buccaneer crowd during Friday night’s clash against the Martin County West girls basketball team. Swanson’s late half heroics put a stamp on BEA’s 19-3 scoring run heading into the break, fueling a 66-44 victory over the Mavericks that snapped a previous two-game losing streak.

Emersen Weir and Lola Lundquist joined Swanson as the leading scorers during the Buccaneers’ winning efforts. Swanson finished the night with 22 points while Weir and Lundquist had 17 and 16 points, respectively. Emily Schrader chipped in with eight points.

“You know it was a little slow to start, but I liked our response,” BEA head coach Spencer Monson said. “There was a lot of adversity early in the game. I think earlier in the year, we could have folded to that adversity, but tonight we just kept fighting back.”

For the Mavericks, it was Maddie Carlson leading the charge with 22 points of her own. Bailey Larson had six points while Ida Rohman had four.

“Well, we didn’t guard well enough tonight,” MCW head coach Cliff Anderson said. “They have two really good players that can shoot the lights out, and if you give them a second, they will make them.”

MCW started things off in its traditional 3-2 zone, holding the Buccaneers scoreless for the first two minutes of the contest while Rohman notched two layups for an early 6-0 lead.

While BEA continued to face a deficit for the next 10 minutes, the offensive glass proved to be their friend in generating extra possessions. The Buccaneers finally cashed from the perimeter after a Weir 3-pointer evened things up at 16.

Schrader’s two free throws started the spark for BEA, finally breaking the tie game and giving her team the lead that held true the rest of the contest. Weir and Lundquist then took advantage of the collapsed zone defense with strikes from the perimeter, and Swanson’s following 3-pointer gave the Buccaneers a 27-18 cushion with under two minutes in the first half.

Swanson’s five-point outburst ended the half with a BEA lead of 32-18.

“Their zone is really tough,” Monsoon said. “I’ve been going against Cliff’s zones for a long time. With the boys, it was tough, and now with the girls its tough. But we really just started hitting shots. And once we hit shots, that gave us some more gaps to attack.”

The Weir, Lundquist and Swanson trio continued to shine out of the gamebreak scoring the team’s first seven points.

Anderson’s team cut the deficit to 14 with under 13 minutes to play after Carlson and Larson converted on easy looks around the rim, but two more makes from Weir put the Buccaneers back up 53-32 three minutes later.

Weir and Swanson put the finishing touches on the contest after draining 3-pointers on back-to-back possessions with under two minutes to play, powering BEA to the 66-44 win on its home floor.

MCW (13-12) will play Jackson County Central next Tuesday, while BEA (8-17) plays Granada Huntley East Chain/Truman/Martin Luther on Monday.