Blossom girls extend winning streak to four

The Blooming Prairie girls basketball team isn’t winning by as much as they did at the beginning of the season, but they are winning and that’s all that matters.
This past week, they beat the Kenyon-Wanamingo Knights 38-35 on Tuesday, Feb. 16, and then they beat the Faribault Bethlehem Academy Cardinals 45-38 on Friday, Feb. 19.
Against Kenyon-Wanamingo, the Blossoms scored the first three points of the game, but the Knights responded with a 7-0 run.
But, less than two minutes later, Blooming Prairie tied the game 7-7.
A few minutes later, with Kenyon-Wanamingo leading 14-13, Maren Forystek’s three-pointer was nothing but net to give the Awesome Blossoms a 16-14 lead with five minutes left in the first half.
The final five minutes went back-and-forth, and Blooming Prairie led 19-16 at halftime.
The second half was just as competitive as the first half. The Blossoms started the second half on a 6-3 run, but the Knights made back-to-back three-point plays to tie the score 25-25 with 10 minutes left in the game.
A few minutes later, with Blooming Prairie trailing by one, Allison Krohnberg sank a three-pointer and jumpstarted a 7-1 Blossoms run to give them a 33-28 lead with four minutes left in the game.
However, just a minute later, the Knights cut their deficit to two, 35-33.
Blooming Prairie responded by scoring the next three points to give the Blossoms a 38-33 lead with a minute left in the game.
Kenyon-Wanamingo scored two more points to give themselves a shot, but its desperation heave in the final seconds was corralled by the Blossoms to preserve their 38-35 win.
Blossoms Head Coach John Bruns was proud that his team was able to pull out a win despite a tough shooting night.
“KW did a good job defensively and made things difficult for us. We won the game, but definitely didn’t play to our potential,” he said. “We will regroup and talk about some things and come back a better team from this game.”
BP individual stats: Megan Oswald – 14 points, Allison Krohnberg – 5 points, Emily Miller – 5 points, Maggie Bruns – 5 points, Maren Forystek – 4 points, Anna Pauly – 3 points and Bobbie Bruns – 2 points.
Another test
A few days later, Blooming Prairie got another tough test when they went on the road to play the Faribault Bethlehem Academy (FBA) Cardinals.
Bruns said the two teams battled back-and-forth throughout the first half and the score was tied 20-20 at halftime.
“BP was able to come out with a nice run in the first six minutes of the second half to take control of the game and withstood several FBA runs to secure the win,” he said.
The Blossoms won 45-38 to improve their overall record to 9-1 and their Gopher Conference record to 7-0.
Blooming Prairie’s next game is a home contest against United South Central at 7:15 p.m. on Friday.
BP individual stats: Megan Oswald – 20 points, Bobbie Bruns – 9 points, Allison Krohnberg – 8 points, Maren Forystek – 3 points, Maggie Bruns – 2 points, Anna Pauly – 2 points and Emily Miller – 1 point.