Staff photo by Travis Rosenau Sleepy Eye’s Cadence Okerman goes up for a layup while guarded by Nicollet’s Savannah Klockziem (33) in Saturday afternoon’s Tomahawk-Valley Conference crossover girls basketball game against Nicollet at Sleepy Eye High School.

SLEEPY EYE — It took a half for the Sleepy Eye Indians to get into their groove Saturday afternoon, but once they did they were hard to stop.

With five players finishing in double figures, the Indians pushed past a narrow halftime deficit on the way to a 67-49 win over the Nicollet Raiders in a Tomahawk-Valley Conference girls basketball crossover game.

Paige Haala led Sleepy Eye with 14 points, five assists, four rebounds and three steals, while Sam Price had 13 points, five rebounds and two blocks and Taylor Berkner had 12 points, five rebounds and five assists. Cadence Okerman added 11 points, nine steals and five rebounds, while Jaelynn Schauman had 11 points and four rebounds.

“I think it’s awesome when we have five girls in double digits,” Haala said. “This is our second or third game doing that and it just helps because they don’t know who to guard.”

Okerman added that being just one of five players in double figures shows the team’s balance and ability to count on each other.

“We don’t just have to rely on one or two players, we know this person has a strength here, this person has a strength there, so this was awesome to see,” Okerman said.

Nicollet was led by Leah Bode’s 14 points, while Zoie Rengstorf, Savannah Klockziem and Cheyenne Klockziem each added 8 points.

Okerman was also playing with a black eye that was obtained by an elbow in Friday night’s home win over Granada-Huntley-East Chain/Truman/Martin Luther. Coincidentally, she was a sight for sore eyes for her team on defense as she helped lead the big turnaround in the second half.

The Indians, who increased their defensive pressure with full-court trap late in the first half, kept that intensity up in the second half and created several fast-break looks at the hoop on the other end because of it. Back-to-back layups to start the second half by Berkner and Okerman tied it before Price hit a turnaround jumper in the lane and Haala added a free throw for a 7-0 Sleepy Eye run and 33-30 lead.

“I think the adjustment was just patience and trusting in each other,” Okerman said. “I think right away we kind of got spread out with the press and just getting past half court, but once we got settled and got into our offense and our rhythm, that’s when we finally got shots we wanted and that’s why we got the W.”

A free throw by Jazmyn Goettlicher stopped the quick Sleepy Eye run, but moments later the Indians got a run of 10-0 to lead 41-33. The run was capped off with layups from Haala and Okerman and stopped with a putback bucket by Bode on the other end.

A 3 by Rengstorf had Nicollet within 5, 47-42, but Jace Schauman scored on her second consecutive layup to answer before Price added a 3 and a layup for a 54-42 Sleepy Eye lead. The Raiders cut their deficit back down to 7 after that, but the Indians continued to roll late on the way to the win.

“I think our defensive outlook in the second half definitely led us to our transition,” Haala said. “We love to transition, we love to run and our defensive intensity in the second half really helped us do that.”

The first half was relatively even, but the Raiders remained in control for much of it. Late in the half the Raiders created some distance by breaking Sleepy Eye’s press and scoring on back-to-back fast-break buckets from Cheyenne Klockziem and Bode to lead 24-16. Bode added a free throw with 5:45 left in the opening half for a 25-16 lead, the Raiders’ biggest lead in the game and the Raiders took a 30-26 lead into halftime.

Sleepy Eye, now 7-5, has turned the corner in a big way since starting the season 0-4, and head coach Grant Romberg said he expected this improvement as his young players got more time on the floor.

“The girls just got acclimated to their roles,” Romberg said. “A lot of the girls were playing way more minutes than they were used to, because we only had the two, Paige and Cadence, that played a lot of minutes last year. So everyone’s stepping into their role and accepting it and it’s just the team chemistry’s coming around. It helped a lot the game against Granada-Huntley-East Chain and [Saturday], we had Jaelynn Schauman back, she was the one injured and she was a big part we were missing. She’s a big, physical rebounder and she finishes well around the basket and she’s really quick, runs hard down the floor, so that was a huge help, too, and that’s going to really help us going forward.”

Nicollet fell to 5-4 with the loss.

Sleepy Eye hosts Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop on Tuesday night.