Hampton, Delta lock in, rally back to beat South Iron

The Delta Bobcats girl’s basketball team fell into a five-point hole at halftime but rallied back with a 24-point frenzy in the third quarter to down South Iron 62-58 in a Class 1 sectional game on Tuesday night.

“They were all over us,” Delta coach David Heeb said. “I mean that as a compliment. We fought back in the game, but we just had a real hard time keeping them in front of us in the first half, which is unusual for our kids.”

Delta survived a raucous South Iron defense en route to the win. The two are no strangers to each other, having matched up in each of the past three state tournament brackets.

While the two aren’t exactly friendly, coach David Heeb had nothing but respect for their tournament rivals.

“I just wanted to give them a tremendous compliment,” Heeb said. “All I have to do is tell our kids ‘Hey, I bet they're working hard at South Iron today,’ you know, and they’d snap back to attention because we knew there was somebody out there that, if we didn't keep getting better, they were out there still getting better.”

Following the game, Heeb gave much credit to the defensive adjustments made at halftime with Allie Hampton switching onto South Iron’s Madison Ayers.

After scoring 21 in the first half, Ayers scored just seven points in the second half, with Delta’s Hampton giving the Bobcats the game-winning edge on defense.

Heeb made a key point out of Hampton and Sierra Berry’s defensive intensity in the second half. While the two combined for just nine points, Heeb says that the defensive edge is what sent the Bobcats on to the quarterfinal.

“That was the difference in the game,” Heeb said. “Allie and Sierra’s defense. If not for that, we're going home and they’re moving on.”

Jade Berry led all scoring for Delta with 19 in the matchup, followed by Presley Holweg (13), Olivia Wagoner (12), Addison Nichols (9), Sierra Berry (7) and Allie Hampton (2).

With the win, Delta is still dancing and moves into the quarterfinal against Chadwick at 3:30 p.m. on Saturday. Chadwick checks in at 23-5, and while the Bobcats hold a superior record, no wins come easy in the state tournament bracket.

“We’ve got a few hours to enjoy this,” Heeb said. “But when you wake up tomorrow, you know, you’ve got to shift gears immediately to ‘What have we got to do to win the next game?’ They're gonna present a whole new set of challenges.

“There's a lot of things from this game tonight that we can clean up and fix. I still think our best game is in front of us. If we can play every game like we played tonight, nobody will beat us.”