JON GERARDI/Sun-Gazette St. John Neumann’s Niyah Tutler poses for photographs with balloons that spell out 1,000 after she reached the milestone on Friday. She’s posing alongside her former teammate Gigi Parlante, another 1,000-point scorer.

By her own admission, St. John Neumann senior Niyah Tutler was a little nervous entering Friday’s game. It wasn’t because it was senior night, either.

While Tutler was honored prior to the game for being a senior, it was the fact she was just one point away from 1,000 for her career that had her a tad nervous.

The nerves quickly passed though and with 4 minutes, 49 seconds left in the first quarter, Tutler reached the milestone. The Golden Knight hit the first of her two free throws to become the third 1,000-point scorer in the last three years as St. John Neumann defeated Columbia County Christian at the Catholic Community Center on Friday evening, 49-39.

“It feels good,” Tutler said with a laugh. “It was nerve-wracking in the beginning until I hit the first one.”

Tutler joins her sister Sheiana and current Penn College standout Gigi Parlante as 1,000-point scorers and teammates. All three accomplished the feats in consecutive years.

“It feels good and those are my sisters. Even though Gigi’s not blood, that’s my sister,” Tutler said. “So it feels good that all three of us hit it in a row our senior year.”

Tutler laughed when asked if she was excited to see her name on the 1,000-point banner in the future and said she was looking forward to it.

Once Tutler scored her 1,000th point, the Golden Knights got down to business and focused on winning. Neumann held Columbia County Christian to just one point in the first quarter.

But the Defenders scored 17 in the second quarter and started to hang around, flirting with single digit deficits throughout the second, third and fourth quarters.

The Defenders trailed by just five points in the second quarter and saw the deficit cut to eight points three times in the second half.

“I feel like when we realized they were kind of coming back and started scoring, that’s when we realized we needed to pick up the pace and have more energy,” Tutler said.

The Golden Knights kept a lead the entire game and never let the Defenders rally, although Columbia County Christian did keep the game close.

“We just needed to lock in. We are good on defense, so it was just really the energy,” Tutler noted. “We needed to pick it up and talk to each other to motivate one another.”

Tutler and Bre Nixon both scored 15 points each for St. John Neumann. Tutler did a little bit of everything. She had a team-high four assists, swiped away a steal and had four rebounds to go with her 15 points.

Sophie Reed had a team-high nine rebounds and Kallee Johnson grabbed five defensive boards to go with 10 points.

“I feel like if I’m not doing good, the team gets down so I realized that my energy needed to get picked up for them to start picking up their energy,” Tutler said.

Columbia County Christian was led by Ashleigh Boudman’s 18 points and seven rebounds and Audrey Mood’s nine points.

The Defenders started the game slow, going 0 for 11 from the field before scoring their first basket with roughly five minutes remaining in the second quarter.

Neumann 49, Columbia County 39

COLUMBIA COUNTY (39)

Willa DuMond 1 0-0 3; ISabella Farley 1 0-0 2; Elizabeth Yocum 2 1-1 5; Audrey Mood 3 0-0 9; Ashleigh Boudman 7 3-4 18; Lilly DuMond 1 0-4 2. Totals 15 4-9 39.

NEUMANN (49)

Haylee Meixel 0 0-0 0; Kallee Johnson 5 0-0 10; Sophie Reid 2 0-0 4; Savanna Smith 2 0-0 5; Bre Nixon 5 0-2 15; Niyah Tutler 4 6-9 15. Totals 18 6-11 49.

Columbia County 1 14 16 8 — 39

Neumann 10 17 14 8 — 49

3-point goals: CC 5 (Mood 3, Boudman 1, W. DuMond 1), Neumann 7 (Nixon 5, Tutler 1, Smith 1).