Everyone knew about Aberdeen Central’s inside strength, but Harrisburg’s outside shooting took centerstage at Golden Eagles Arena Friday afternoon.

The Tigers shot nearly 60 percent from 3-point range, blitzed Central off the dribble and grabbed a 57-44 Eastern South Dakota Conference girls’ basketball victory. Both teams entered the contest on a four-game slide, but Harrisburg did not look like a team that improved to .500 with the win.

The Tigers were hotter than fish grease from the perimeter to start the game, nailing their first five 3-pointers to quickly build a double-digit lead.

“All credit to Harrisburg for playing a phenomenal game,” said Central coach Paiton Burckhard. “They played really, really well.”

Harrisburg coach Blake Mayer said his players came out and played with a ton of confidence. Of course, shooting that well only fueled that belief.

“Our kids do a nice job shooting the basketball,” Mayer said. “We’ve seen that in certain games. Sometimes we go cold, but tonight we came out and we were confident.”

It was Logan Durnil that set the pace, scoring 17 first-half points, 12 of them coming on four 3-pointers.

To compound matters for the Golden Eagles, when they played man-to-man defense, the Tigers bolted into the lane for uncontested layups.

“Obviously, our help side wasn’t there,” said Central’s Lauryn Burckhard. “We went to our zone, and our man and zone were kind of the same. They weren’t working like we needed them to. That’s what we’ve got to work on.”

Coach Burckhard said the Golden Eagles did not adjust to the situation well. Harrisburg had just three players score in the contest, but they shot a combined 18 for 31 between them, including 10 of 17 from 3-point range.

“We just didn’t start very strong. We were physically there, but I don’t know, we were missing that mental piece,” the coach said. “We were missing being able to adjust to things when things weren’t working. We didn’t adjust to the girls that we knew were going to score and knock shots down.”

To Harrisburg’s credit, the Tigers didn’t always settle for long-range shots. When Central players closed out to the perimeter, the visitors put the ball on the floor and drove right to the rim.

“We just didn’t do a good job of adjusting to things and we didn’t do a good job of guarding the ball, and that’s stuff that we talk about all the time,” Coach Burckhard said. “We scouted this way. We talked about, hey they can do both. They can shoot the ball, they can dribble the ball, so our closeouts have to be good. You have to guard the three, but you also have to guard the dribble, and I just didn’t think we adjusted very well to that.”

To be fair, Harrisburg had nearly everything working, both offensively and defensively.

When asked if that was his team’s best game of the season, Mayer responded, “I would say so. … To be able to come off a tough stretch and our kids to be able to be resilient like this, it’s just fun to watch.”

Down 14 points at the half, Central made some adjustments and clawed back into the game in the second half. The Golden Eagles found their inside tandem of Taryn Hermansen and Lauryn Burckhard, and eventually cut the margin down to single digits in the closing minutes.

“I still say though, one positive out of this, our first half of basketball reminded me of how they played last year, just staring at Taryn and just trying to chuck it in and that didn’t work,” Coach Burckhard said. “That’s where a lot of our turnovers came from. But I thought we did a better job of having some more movement on the perimeter screens, cutting without the ball, and that’s what got us going.”

Finding ways to utilize their twin towers is something that the Golden Eagles work on repeatedly in practice.

“That’s our offense. We work on it every day in practice, lobbing them,” said Burckhard who led Central with 21 points, “because our bigs are one of our biggest advantages, so using them to the best our abilities is good.”

In the end, though there was no stopping Harrisburg on this occasion. The Tigers, who made all 11 of their free-throw attempts, nailed six in the final 90 seconds to stay in control.

“They drove the ball really well, they shot it really well,” Lauryn Burckhard said. “You’d foul them and hope they wouldn’t score, and then they would make their free throws.”

Durnil finished with 23 points and Brynn VanBockern added 21 for Harrisburg.

Hermansen contributed 13 points to the Central total.

The Golden Eagles, 7-6 on the season, head to Mitchell on Tuesday, looking to turn things around. Coach Burckhard said a key will be just reminding the girls to stay confident.

“I think just having a really positive attitude and reminding them that they can do it. The team we were five games ago is no different. We are still the same team. We have the same girls,” she said. “It might not feel that way all the time, but we still are the same team, so let’s get back to that, being positive and working on things, and filling up their cup a little bit.”

HARRISBURG (7-7): Brynn VanBockern 6 8-8 21, Logan Durnil 8 1-1 23, Makinley Lawrenson 4 2-2 13. Totals 18-35 11-11 57.

ABERDEEEN CENTRAL (7-6): Kamdyn Borge 0 1-2 1, Kenadi Withers 0 2-2 2, Emma Dohrer 2 2-2 7, Lauryn Burckhard 9 1-5 21, Taryn Hermansen 6 1-2 13. Totals 17-41 7-13 44.

Harrisburg 14 30 46 57

Aberdeen Central 6 16 30 44

3-point field goals – VanBockern, Durnil 6, Lawrenson 3; Dohrer, Burckhard 2. Total fouls – Harrisburg 17; Aberdeen Central 13. Rebounds – Harrisburg 31 (VanBockern 8); Aberdeen Central 25 (Burckhard 7, Hermansen 6). Turnovers – Harrisburg 14; Aberdeen Central 13. Assists – Harrisburg 10; Aberdeen Central 8 (Dohrer 4). Blocked shots – Harrisburg 2; Aberdeen Central 2 (Burkchard 2). Steals – Harrisburg 3 (Lawrenson 2); Aberdeen Central 6 (Borge 2, Withers 2).