Staff photo by Travis Rosenau Sleepy Eye’s Kayla Hecht goes up for a shot in the paint during a nonconference girls basketball game against Waterville-Elysian-Morristown on Saturday at Sleepy Eye St. Mary’s High School.

SLEEPY EYE — While the Sleepy Eye Indians girls basketball team has talent back from last season’s 24-4 team, figuring out where to put that talent and filling in the rest of the puzzle is going be the team’s biggest task this season.

Despite a competitive first half of basketball on Day 2 of the Sleepy Eye St. Mary’s Tip-Off Invitational, turnovers piled up on the Indians Saturday afternoon as the Waterville-Elysian-Morristown Buccaneers ran away with a 75-47 win.

The Indians, who fell to BOLD 63-40 on Day 1 of the St. Mary’s Invite Friday, fell to 0-2 to start the season. WEM improved to 1-1.

Sleepy Eye, under first-year head coach Grant Romberg, had moments in the first half against WEM where it controlled the game and even cut an 11-point deficit down to 2 right before the half. But losing two of the school’s top two career scorers in Kadence Hesse and Brea Mertz to graduation in 2024 was bound to make things challenging this season for Romberg.

“The biggest thing is going to be to getting accustomed to step into that role,” Romberg said. “We’re asking a lot more of those key players from last year that came back. And right now I think they’ve got a lot of weight on their shoulders and they’ve got to trust the other girls that are contributors now, too. We’re going to play a deeper rotation this year out of necessity, I mean most nights we’re going to play eight or nine girls a fair amount of minutes.

“And we’re running a little bit of a new offensive system. Obviously it’s big shoes to fill with Kadence and Brea gone and I think it’s just going to take a few games for these girls to get acclimated and start to get that confidence to step in and do that. I’ve been honestly happy with the progress so far, obviously we wish we would’ve had a better start to this weekend, but we’re making baby steps and we’ll keep on improving.”

Paige Haala led Sleepy Eye with 10 points and three rebounds, while Kayla Hecht added 9 points and three rebounds. Sam Price had 7 points and four rebounds, while Cadence Okerman had 5 points, four rebounds, two assists and two steals and Jace Schauman had four rebounds and two assists.

WEM was led by Addison Condon’s 29 points, while Kaitlyn LaFrance had 11 points.

Both teams traded points in the opening minutes of Saturday’s contest before a 3 by Hecht gave the Indians a 7-4 lead. After trading points again, Hecht hit her second of three 3-pointers in the game to put her team up 14-11.

That was the last time the Indians led in the game as Alix Velzke answered with a 3 to tie it and kick off an 11-0 run to put the Bucs up 22-14. Dittbenner drained a 3 to stop that run and have Sleepy Eye down 24-17, but the Bucs wouldn’t allow that to go without another answer as LaFrance hit a 3 to give her team a double-digit lead again.

Moments later LaFrance hit another 3 for a 30-19 lead, but the Indians started to fight back, getting a putback and-one by Okerman before she scored again on a drive to the hoop. Okerman then dished off a pass to Hecht for a corner 3 to have the Indians down 30-27. Schauman got a free throw to make it a 30-28 game, but Condon got the last points of the half in the paint for a 32-28 WEM lead at halftime.

A free throw from Haala had Sleepy Eye down 32-29 to start the second half, but things got away in a hurry after that for the Indians as their turnovers piled up.

The Bucs’ final points of the game, which also was their largest lead, came in the closing minute on a steal for an and-one by Velzke.

“Turnovers were the story of the game for sure,” Romberg said. “I believe we had 24 turnovers this game. We’ve got to try to stay to 15 and under in a game. I expect some of this with some newer players that are getting more action now. Until they get more comfortable and acclimated, we’re probably going to have to battle through this a little bit. But we definitely have to value every possession.”

Sleepy Eye is at Redwood Valley High School for a 7:30 p.m. nonconference game Tuesday.