Pirate Girls Basketball Wins Easy Over Win-E-Mac

The Crookston Pirates Girls’ basketball team forced 37 turnovers in a 67-28 win over Win-E-Mac Patriots in a non-Section game played at the Crookston High School Gymnasium.

Crookston utilized smothering defense in the first half as the Pirates managed to force 23 Win-E-Mac turnovers in the first half to take a commanding lead into halftime. The Patriots jumped out to a 2-0 lead before Emma Borowicz knocked down a three-pointer giving Crookston the lead. Borowicz added a pair of free-throws giving the Pirates a 5-2 lead with 16:40 left in the first half and Crookston never looked back. Rachel Hefta delivered a pass to a cutting Borowicz who finished at the rim to continue the Pirates’ 9-0 run with Crookston taking a 9-2 lead. Emma Borowicz continued her stellar first-half with a three-pointer to spark another 9-0 run pushing the Pirates’ lead to 18-4. A Gretchen Theis three-pointer grew the Crookston lead to 21-6 before two more Borowicz free throws expanded the Pirates’ lead to 23-6 with 10:53 left in the first half. Gretchen Theis finished a contested lay-up at the rim giving Crookston a 27-10 lead with 6:43 left in the opening half. Leading 29-12, Hayden Winjum scored four-straight points giving Crookston a 33-12 lead. “I think our spacing was really good and there was a lot of unselfishness early on,” said Crookston head coach Darrin Zimmerman. “Obviously, when you make shots that helps too and we made some shots right away and I think confidence was high after that.” The Pirates finished a perfect half at the free-throw line after Rachel Hefta knocked down two shots from the charity stripe to close out a 39-15 first-half in which Crookston shot 14-14 from the free-throw line. “It was a really complete half, I thought,” added Zimmerman. “For eighteen minutes I thought our intensity was high especially on the defensive end. Our defense led to some offensive opportunities for us and that’s one of the things we emphasized this week. We played a really good first half on Tuesday night, but it was only fourteen minutes and we needed to put a full half together and get those extra four minutes because it makes a really big difference and we were able to do that tonight.”

The Pirates continued to present defensive pressure in the second half. Leading 46-23 with 12:01 remaining Emma Borowicz dropped to one knee before sending a pass across the lane to Kasey Cwikla who laid the ball in off the backboard giving Crookston a 48-23 lead. Emma Boll brought down one of her six rebounds on the offensive end which she passed to Borowicz who made another three-pointer giving the Pirates a 51-23 lead with 11:12 to play. Emma Boll continued her strong second half finishing a lay-up through contact and completing the three-point play giving Crookston a 60-25 lead with 7:33 to play. With the game in running time, both teams were able to clear their benches while the Pirates closed out a 66-28 win to remain unbeaten. “I was really pleased,” summarized Zimmerman, “the girls have worked really hard and it showed on the floor tonight with the way that we played. It was a good 36-minute game. There were a couple things offensively that we want to clean up, but if we can keep this defensive intensity up, we’re going to be just fine.”

The Pirates improve to 2-0 and return to the court on Tuesday when Crookston hosts Red Lake Falls at 7:30 p.m. Win-E-Mac falls to 0-1.