Twice in the second half, the Tippecanoe girls basketball team erased sizable leads by battling back to tie their game with rival Butler. With one minute left, this included when Emily Aselage scored at the rim, tying the game at 40.

But the Aviators connected on three free throws in the final 21 seconds. Tipp could not answer this time as Butler remained unbeaten on the season with a 43-40 conference win against Tipp. With the win, the Aviators improved to 12-0 overall and 9-0 in the MVL Miami Division. While Tipp falls to 9-4 and 7-3 in conference play. Butler has a comfortable lead in the conference against Tipp.

“Their 1-3-1, I know, was going to be hard, and they have really improved on it since the first time we played them,” Butler coach Molly Bardonaro said. “We made some bonehead mistakes holding the ball too long instead of advancing it and got caught up in traps and jump balls a little too much.”

“We missed some easy bunnies in the second quarter, and they were outrebounding us in the first half.”

Tipp coach Julian Grasso was happy with how his team fought back but not pleased with the number of mistakes his team made in crucial times.

“I was proud of our comeback, and we did not play a very clean game,” he said. “We fought hard and got the game tied with the ball. Unfortunately, like they had done throughout the game, we made some mistakes.”

“Games are lost and not won due to mistakes, and we made some mistakes late in the game. If we are going to a team who is competing for a league championship and sectional or district titles and beyond, we have to clean up the mistakes.”

Butler led 20-16 at the half and pushed it to six early in the third before Liv Hiser knocked down a pair of shots to tie the game at 24-24 with 3:36 left in the third. Butler again pulled away thanks to Noel Smith, who had hit some big threes in the first half.

Dillan Bardonaro hit a three with 5:55 left, then a layup inside four minutes to push the Butler lead to 40-31. Tipp fought back with a 9-0 run behind a big three from Aselage and two short finishes from Mader. The game was then tied 40-40 with one minute left.

Tipp could not answer with a last second prayer shot and fell short.

Made led Tipp with 17 points, Aselage added nine and Courtney Post had six. Butler was led in scoring by Smith with 13 and Bardonaro with 11.

“They felt (the pressure) today,” Bardonaro said when asked if her players were starting to feel the pressure of being undefeated on the season. “They know our boys team beat Tipp last night and are undefeated too. Tipp is their rival, and they always have a goal to beat them twice.”

For Tipp, it was their first complete game without 6-3 junior Reese Hoover. She suffered a torn ACL in their game against Sidney last week, a big loss for the Red Devils. Grasso feels there are some solid players who can step up their game even more to help with Hoover’s absence.

“Emily (Aselage) has had a great season and hit a big three tonight and had a layup to tie the game, Liv Hiser is a sophomore getting better throughout the season,” he said. “Shoutout to Reese who won’t be with us the rest of the season and is a great kid. The team has been down since that happened, and finding out yesterday that her injury is severe has been tough for us.”