Chrislyn Inglese hit a 3-pointer with 3:56 to play in the game to put the Lady Nordics (5-2, 2-0) on top for good and then sank three free throws down the stretch to ice the win.

“We beat a very good team tonight,” North Dickinson coach Kirk Mattson said. “I’ll tell you, our girls left everything on the floor tonight.

“We have been working a lot on slowing down on our outside shooting, just taking that little bit longer to get squared up, and we did that,” the coach added. “And our defense was fantastic.”

Any defensive plan against the Wolves begins with 6-foot-3-inch Division 4 all-state center Tessa Wagner. The Lady Nordics sandwiched Wagner in the low post areas out of their 3-2 zone, scrunched three players around her at the high post and tried to keep her off the boards, where she is most effective.

North Dickinson’s Aiden Hord (32) tries to get up a shot against Carney-Nadeau’s Shae Linder (23) on Wednesday. Hord scored a key bucket in the fourth quarter that gave the Lady Nordics a 44-41 lead with 2:17 left to play.

With all that attention paid to Wagner, North Dickinson had to give up something and that was relatively open perimeter shots for the other Carney-Nadeau players.

The tactic didn’t work so well in the second quarter when the Wolves outscored the Lady Nordics 17-5 to take a 27-18 lead into intermission.

“She’s a very good player, obviously,” Mattson said of Wagner. “Our plan was, if they’re going to beat us, she’s not going to score 30 tonight.

“Let somebody else out there (shoot). And in the first half, they were making shots.”

But that didn’t last. The Wolves began to misfire on their perimeter shots in the third quarter, which allowed the North Dickinson offense take its time against the Carney-Nadeau 3-2 zone.

Nordics senior guard Chrislyn Inglese whips a cross-court pass over the Wolves’ Carley Messersmith (32) during the Skyline Central Conference battle Wednesday night. Inglese contributed heavily in the win, scoring 15 points.

Wolves coach Ken Linder began the game in a man-to-man, but North Dickinson standout Ashton Hord ate that alive with penetrating plays on her way to eight points in the opening period. When the Wolves switched to the zone to contain Hord’s drives, the Lady Nordics kept dribbling in a vain attempt to penetrate.

In turn, North Dickinson scored just four points in the second quarter after taking a 13-10 lead after one.

Mattson said he was not surprised by Carney-Nadeau’s defensive switch and countered with an adjustment of his own to start the third quarter.

“That’s going to happen as we get into the district tournament,” he began. “Teams are going to focus on Ashton, so we’re making an effort to have Chrislyn and Vanessa (Lindholm) be a two-guard front up there and then Ashton can work off baseline cuts and screens on the baseline.

“That gives her a break and also frees her up from someone just hanging on her.”

With Hord off the ball and cutting from behind the defense, the Lady Nordics began to pass the ball against the zone instead of trying to dribble side to side or through it. The players executed the switch to near perfection.

Lindholm began the third quarter with a 3-pointer, Hord got loose off the ball and in transition for seven points and Inglese buried a triple to knot the score at 31-all entering the fourth quarter.

The game was nip-and-tuck from there with Wagner leading her team down the stretch with eight points of her 16 points. On the other side, North Dickinson got buckets from Micah Lindholm, Vanessa Lindholm and Aiden Hord to support the efforts of Inglese (15 points) and Ashton Hord (20 points).

With North Dickinson up 47-43, Carney-Nadeau junior Kelsie Smith nailed a 3-pointer with 18 seconds left to cut the gap to one. The Lady Nordics held from there and Ashton Hord split a pair of free throws to account for the final score.

“She’s an underrated player. One thing, she plays amazing defense,” Mattson said of Inglese. “She’s long, she’s deceptively quick and she’s got a motor. She’s going all the time.

“Offensively, she’s been shooting very well this year, which is nice to see. She did a heck of a job tonight.”

Jerry DeRoche can be reached at 906-774-2772, ext. 247, or at jderoche@ ironmountaindailynews.com.