Despite a valiant comeback by North Tama, South Hardin pulled away from the Redhawks in the final minutes and kept its season alive with a 63-55 home win.

Sam Zobel scored a team-high 18 points for the Redhawks, who came into the game winners of six of their last seven. The lone loss during that stretch came against South Hardin. Josie Youel also scored 11 points in limited action.

Despite a big advantage at the line, South Hardin had trouble putting away North Tama all night.

The Tigers led by eight after one quarter and went into halftime up 33-22. But the Redhawks made things interesting down the stretch thanks to solid efforts inside from Zobel and Youel.

North Tama (15-8) rallied in the third quarter without Youel, who missed lots of court time with foul trouble. The Redhawks got within five a few different times, but South Hardin responded with big shot after big shot.

In the fourth quarter, Zobel went to work inside early to keep the Redhawks close. Her first bucket made it a five-point game and then her three-point play later trimmed the deficit to four. Another bucket and a Youel free throw got the Redhawks to within three. Youel though had a chance to cut into the advantage even more but missed the front end of a one-and-one and Prosser scored eight straight Tiger points to put the home team back up nine.

“We tend to be consistently inconsistent at the free-throw line,” said North Tama coach Phil Moss. “We just shot poorly tonight from the line and had some turnovers we shouldn’t have had, too.”

North Tama ends the season at 15-8 and will graduate two of their top three scorers in Sam Zobel and Josie Youel. The solid 1-2 punch averaged 13.5 and 9.4 points per game, respectively. Youel and Zobel were also the team’s top rebounders at 4.9 and 4.7 rebounds per game.

Junior Anna Kvidera will be the Redhawks’ top returning scorer at 9.7 points per game, with juniors Abi Watston – who had a team-high 50 steals on the year – and Jessi Jacobs looking to fill the void on offense. Sophomores Madison Howard and Abbie Schafer will also be more seasoned as juniors and step into more prominent roles in 2014-15.