For three quarters, Aberdeen Roncalli and Groton were hooked up in a riveting defensive battle.

That all changed in a matter of four minutes when Roncalli scored 13 unanswered points to start the fourth quarter on the way to a 43-31 Northeast Conference girls’ basketball victory at Roncalli Gym.

The Cavaliers received 3-pointers from Rylee Voeller, Gabby Thomas, and Claire Crawford to fuel the burst.

“It’s nice when shots go in,” said Roncalli coach Derek Larson. “Rylee hit some big shots, Claire hit some big shots, Gabby stepped up and made a 3.”

Soon what was once a one-point game had ballooned to a 40-26 Roncalli lead midway through the quarter.

“They hit some shots. They got hot there,” said Groton coach Matt Locke. “We missed a few assignments that we hadn’t been missing. We played some undisciplined defense during that stretch, which is not typically like us, but it doesn’t help when you’re not answering, either. You gotta answer once in a while.”

Voeller finished the game with 14 points. The senior hit three 3-pointers.

“I had a lot of confidence coming from my team, because obviously I was a little down on myself the last few weeks,” Voeller said, “but it really was my team supporting, especially my seniors. They always have my back. I just felt a lot of confidence coming from my team tonight.”

Included in the scoring run was a back door layup when Thomas threaded the needle on a pass to Voeller for a basket.

“I don’t know how it got there,” Voeller said of the picture-perfect pass. “I honestly don’t know.”

Groton was unable to stop the Cavaliers until they had built a double-digit advantage.

“It’s just unfortunate. We didn’t do our jobs. We didn’t get the stops,” said Groton’s Jaedyn Penning. “It’s on us. We’ve got to fix it.”

That string of points ended a tug-of-war battle for 24 minutes as the two teams clamped down on each other defensively.

“I thought our kids playing defense guarding their sets was really good,” Larson said. “I don’t know how much they scored out of the sets they wanted to run. I thought we did a really good job defending them.”

While the Roncalli press did not force a ton of turnovers, it helped to prevent the Tigers from getting into a rhythm on offense.

“They have good pressure and they make you go faster than you want to go, but again, we gotta fix what we gotta fix, we have to play like we normally play,” Penning said. “We didn’t do that. We didn’t execute how we were supposed to and it just wasn’t our night.”

As if playing rival Groton didn’t provide enough incentive, the Cavaliers had a little extra motivation after losing a home game to Clark-Willow Lake last Thursday.

“Our motivation was, we knew how hard they were going to come out and play, and we were like we gotta come out and match that energy, make it bigger,” Voeller said of facing Groton. “We knew the atmosphere was going to be great. ‘Lars’ said it before the game, we’ve just to go give it everything we’ve got. We didn’t do that last game, so we knew we needed to come out today, play with our hearts and give it everything.”

Thomas added 13 points to the Roncalli total.

Senior Morgan Helms hauled down eight rebounds for the Cavaliers, including a pair of offensive caroms, one of which eventually turned into a three-point field goal.

“Morgan very rarely gets credit for a lot of things she does. Typically has to guard the other team’s best player. Does a really good job of that,” Larson said. “Probably one of our better offensive rebounders. Probably one of the smallest people on the floor most of the time. Again, that’s about effort and she definitely brings that effort every night.”

Penning topped Groton with 11 points, and Rylee Dunker followed with nine.

Locke was proud of his team’s effort. He said moving forward the Tigers will work on playing a full 32 minutes.

“We’ve got to be consistently tough. I know we’re a tough basketball team, and we played tough at times tonight, but we didn’t play tough all the time,” Locke said, “and when we didn’t play tough, disciplined they made us pay for it.”

Roncalli, 10-2, has just one home game remaining, and a gauntlet of tough teams on the road coming up, starting off with Britton-Hecla on Friday.

“We have a lot of good teams on the schedule,” Larson said. “We want to just worry about Britton right now and not think about anyone else.”

GROTON (8-5): Jerica Locke 1 0-2 3, Jaedyn Penning 4 1-2 11, Taryn Traphagen 1 1-2 4, Rylee Dunker 4 0-3 9, Kella Tracy 1 0-0 2, Talli Wright 0 2-2 2. Totals 11-42 4-11 31.

ABERDEEN RONCALLI (10-2): Gabby Thomas 6 0-2 13, Morgan Helms 1 0-0 2, Claire Crawford 2 0-0 6, Karsyn Davis 1 0-0 2, Rylee Voeller 5 1-1 14, Elyana Roach 2 1-2 5, Olivia Dix 0 1-2 1. Totals 17-40 3-7 43.

Groton 7 15 26 31

Aberdeen Roncalli 9 17 27 43

3-point field goals – Locke, Penning 2, Traphagen, Dunker; Thomas, Crawford 2, Voeller 3. Total fouls – Groton 13; Aberdeen Roncalli 14. Rebounds – Groton 21 (Dunker 8); Aberdeen Roncalli 31 (Helms 8, Roach 8). Turnovers – Groton 12; Aberdeen Roncalli 14. Blocked Shots – Groton 1 (Locke); Aberdeen Roncalli (Thomas 2). Steals – Groton 7 (Locke 3).