Grizzlies sweep season series with Hutchinson with big road win

Story by Wyatt Ebersole

It was a tense 40 minutes of action, but the Butler Women picked up their 10th straight win and completed the season sweep of the Hutchinson Blue Dragons for the first time since the 2007-2008 season with their victory of Hutch on Saturday evening. The win improves the Grizzlies to 20-3 on the year and keep them in major contention in the race for the Jayhawk Conference crown. The win for Hutch is their second in their last three games and drops them to 18-6 and 12-6 in conference play.

Both sides came out of the gates firing with almost everything falling early for both teams and the game was an early back-and-forth battle. The Grizzlies were the first team to lead by more two after two Freddie Wallace free throws made it 17-14 with just a couple minutes left in the first quarter. These free throws would spark a 7-2 Grizzly run that saw them take a lead as big as seven and they led 24-19 after the first ten minutes over Hutchinson. 

Things cooled off for both teams in the second quarter with lots of early turnovers and good defense. The Grizzlies grabbed their largest lead of the half with just over five minutes left that saw them take a 30-19 lead. The Blue Dragons would then force a near four-minute scoring Grizzly scoring drought that allowed the Dragons to eventually climb back within four points at 32-28 with 35 seconds left. The Butler Women snagged some momentum back heading into the locker room with a catch-and-shoot elbow three for Randi Harding that put them up 35-28 at the half. 

The Grizzlies led throughout the whole third quarter, but the Dragons never trailed by more than five after the eight-minute mark of the quarter. The Dragons would cut the lead down to three multiple times and got chances at a game tying three, but the Grizzlies managed to get stops to preserve their lead and they held a slight 56-53 lead with only ten minutes left to play. 

The Butler Women came out running to start the fourth and the Grizzlies three-point lead became nine within the first minute and forced a quick Hutchinson timeout at the 9:04 mark. The Grizzlies grew their lead to double digits again with 5:30 left at 69-58 after a tough basket by Freddie Wallace inside. The Dragons weren't done yet however, as Hutchinson would go on a quick 7-0 run to pull themselves within four at the 3:52 mark. The Grizzlies found an answering bucket from Maycee James to grow the lead back to six, 40 seconds later. Hutch cut the deficit down to five with 1:27 left and then got a stop to give themselves a chance to make it a one score game with 47 seconds left, but the Grizzly defense held strong and neither scored the rest of the way and the Butler Women picked up a hard earned 72-67 road victory over Hutchinson.

The Grizzlies will have their biggest game of the season so far on Wednesday on the road in Dodge City in what may be a battle for first place in the Jayhawk Conference.

NOTES: Butler is now 34-59 against Hutch all time and 6-22 in the Mike Helmer era…First Grizzly win at the Sports Arena since February 3rd, 2018 and the Grizzlies are 14-29 at the Sports Arena all-time…The Grizzlies are 20-1 in games this season where Freddie Wallace scores 10+ points and 0-2 when she doesn't…