Things couldn’t have started much worse for the Austin girls basketball team against Mankato West in Ove Berven Gym Tuesday.

The Packers couldn’t buy a bucket for the first six minutes of the game and the Scarlets couldn’t miss. But Austin found a way to turn things around as it was able to beat Mankato West 76-56.

The Scarlets (2-3 overall, 1-3 Big Nine) built a lead of 17-0 early on before Abby Lewis hit a three-pointer to put the Packers (3-3 overall, 2-1 Big Nine) on the board with 11:12 left in the first half. After that score, Austin immediately picked up momentum and it took the lead for good when Awenia Nywesh scored on a post up move to put the Packers up 29-28 with three minutes left in the first half.

“I was super proud of the girls for not giving up at a point when it was easy to give up,” Austin head coach Anna Meyer said. “I think we realized that we needed to get stops on defense and instead of playing individual basketball we needed to play team basketball. We came together instead of trying to do everything ourselves.”

Austin opened the second half a quick 11-0 spurt that was capped by back-to-back hoops by Nyewsh,

who finished with a career-high 17 points to go along with seven rebounds, three assists and three steals in the win. She was able to do most of her damage inside.

“I knew I had an advantage against some of the girls I was going against, and I pretty much showed them what I had,” Nywesh said.

Once the Packers got things rolling, they began to share the wealth. Freshman Colie Justice had 17 points and three steals, eighth grader Elyse Hebrink had11 points and five rebounds and senior Rebecca Younis had nine points, three assists and three steals.

“We had to slow down, because we play so much better when we slow it down and they wanted us to play fast,” Younis said. “Awenia was working so hard down there and they were leaving her wide open. We needed to look in to her more and we started getting get good looks. We trusted Awenia down there and that made us want to go out of the way to make the extra pass.”

West 32  24  —  56

Austin 34  40  —  76

Austin scoring: Awenia Nywesh, 17; Colie Justice, 17; Elyse Hebrink, 11; Rebecca Younis, 9; Abby Lewis, 8; Amber Hansen, 6; Destiny Taylor, 2; Chloe Sheehan, 2; Paiton Schwab, 2; Emily Hegna, 2; free throws: 68 percent (23-for-34)