The Cardinals were in the midst of a string of turnovers and a dwindling lead with the basketball team’s leading scorer, junior center J.J. Panoske, sidelined with an ankle injury.

“We have never had him lost out of a game so it was a big loss,” Cole said. “We just tried to stick together.”

Despite only hitting one field goal after Panoske left the game late in the third quarter, Brodhead managed to calm down and hold onto their lead by connecting on 10-18 free throws down the stretch, winding up with a close 50-47 win.

“It is a big win – a lot of confidence for the rest of the team that we can stick together with a loss like that and to be able to come up with a win,” Cole said.

Up until Panoske and his game-high 20 points left the game with about a minute left in the third, the Cardinals had a solid 38-24 lead and looked thoroughly in control. By the end of the third quarter, McFarland brought the game to 38-30.

Cardinals Head Coach Brian Kammerer said he called on the team’s role players to hold onto the team’s lead and win the game. “I said, you know, it is time for some of you guys to step up. You know kind of call them out and give them a little heart check there and away we went,” Kammerer said.

In addition to Cole, juniors Carson Scheidegger and Nick Jacobson played some valuable minutes in the fourth quarter. Scheidegger, a guard, went for 4-6 from the free throw line in the fourth quarter; while Jacobson scored the team’s only field goal in the quarter with a nifty inside move. Jacobson added two more points with free throws on 2-4 shooting from the line.

“I have got to give credit to those kids that were in there at the end. Sometimes they are not the ones that get their names in the paper. You here a lot about Panoske you hear some about Cole, but the Scheideggers and the Wallaces, Petersons, you go down the list, they get the credit tonight. They found a way to win when our main guy wasn’t on the court,” Kammerer said.

Kammerer credited Cole with holding the team together while Panoske was sitting on the end of the bench with a bag of ice on his ankle. “He is actually the one that talks to the kids, he is the coach out on the floor that we need. He is going to be hard to replace next year, but we are not going to worry about that until we have to,” Krammerer said.

Panoske was on his way to what looked like another 30-point performance when the six-foot-nine standout got tangled up with an opposing player and rolled an ankle fighting for a loose ball. Through the third quarter, Panoske had more than half of the team’s total points and ended the game with eight of their 13 field goals in the game.

Krammerer said the nail-biter was a good learning experience for his team. “It is going to help us down the road if Panoske gets hurt or is in foul trouble, whatever it might be, it wont be a first time anymore,” he said.

Cole finished the game with nine points; Scheidegger, who also had nine points, was 7-9 from the free throw line. Jacobson had eight points, while both junior Alex Wallace and sophomore Trent Jordan added two points.

As usual senior center Dana Lewis led the team in scoring with 16 points, but the stellar guard play of junior Mariah Mohns, seniors Megan Heller and Amanda Johnson and others allowed the Cardinals to play the type of game they wanted – running as much as possible and making Turner try to catch them. Mohns scored 15 points in the game, while Heller had 11 points and Johnson added seven points.

It was a different Brodhead team than the one that lost 56-45 to the Big Foot Chiefs earlier in the week.

“After the Big Foot loss we talked about being able to come out and throw that first punch and not wait to react to what they were doing, instead make them react to us and I think we did a good job of that,” Pickett said.

The Cardinals announced their presence early by taking a 12-4 lead at the end of the first quarter. Although Brodhead had trouble connecting on a number of fast breaks early, the up tempo play seemed to wear on the Trojans quickly.

The Cardinals got into the bonus situation in a hurry, which helped land some of the Turner starting forwards on the bench with foul trouble.

From there the Cardinals put the hammer down. By halftime the Cardinals were leading 33-14. A similarly dominate opening to the third quarter allowed Pickett to sit his starters for the majority of the second half.

Heller at point guard had one of her best games of the season Thursday. “We work on fast break all the time. It is a big part of our offense,” said Heller. “I thought we had an overall good game, everybody did well tonight. Everybody contributed.” Even when the Cardinals were forced to set up their offense the Trojans could do little to stop Brodhead, inside or out. Dana Lewis dominated the middle, while Heller at the point killed Turner by finding the weak spot in the defense at the top of the key and connected on three 3-pointers in the game.

It was the second game in a row that Heller hit three from behind the arc. “Megan (Heller) has to handle the ball for us a little bit, just because she is one of our better ball handlers, so we don’t get a chance to get her on the wing as much as we can. She can shoot the ball, she is probably one of our best shooters too, it is tough to get her off the ball to get her some shots, but she did a nice job looking for her shots and knocking them down.”

Cardinals freshmen Amanda Pickel had three points for the Cardinals; junior Blair Baumtgartner, freshmen Mariah Ahrens and senior Riley Olson all added two points. Junior Megan Glover led the Trojans in scoring with 12 points. The team’s next leading scorer had five points in a game that had few highlights for Turner.