If it wasn’t for allowing plenty of second, third and sometimes more chances on the offensive glass, the Lena High School girls basketball team might have tallied its second victory.
The Wildcats gave too many opportunities to Coleman, and the Cougars took advantage. Coleman, with rebound after rebound, used a 17-8 run to close out the game and score a 48-33 victory in Marinette & Oconto Conference action Monday in Lena.
“We’ve been talking about it for weeks, getting outrebounded badly where we get ourselves pinned too far underneath the block,” Lena coach Tim Goldschmidt said. “I can remember a possession that Coleman had seven opportunities at the basket. Well, you know, you get seven opportunities at the basket, you’re going to finally score once out of seven. We’ve got to do a better job of rebounding and taking care of the basketball.”
“Our girls were persistent going after the rebounds and loose balls tonight,” Coleman coach Jeff Bronson said. “One of the things we talked about prior to the game was how our efforts have kind of been lagging lately, and I thought we played hard tonight. Usually, if you play hard, good things follow.”
Goldschmidt tried to mix up his defenses all night to keep Coleman, which is sitting in second place in the conference standings, off balance.
“Everybody played out of the 15 players on the bench, and we tried three different defenses and tried to pressure a little bit,” Goldschmidt said. “We got a few turnovers, just didn’t make the most of them.”
Coleman (6-6, 6-3 M&O) got out to an 8-0 lead before Lena (1-11, 0-9 M&O) got on the scoreboard. The Wildcats got within 6, 14-8, when Ally Demmith hit a basket, but the Cougars finished the first half up 25-15.
Lena cut its deficit to 6 again at 27-21 and 31-25, but the Wildcats couldn’t get a defensive stop and hoop on the other end. Coleman went on a 9-2 run to stretch its lead out at 40-27.
“That’s been kind of our season,” Goldschmidt said. “We make runs where we get back in the game … and then we get a defensive lapse where we give up a 3 or an offensive rebound and all of a sudden we’re down by double digits again. We’re not a good enough scoring offense to make that up. It’s tough. We’ve just got to play more fundamentally and get everybody going together at the same time.”
Bronson was happy his girls were able to ward off Lena each time it made a push. Coleman cut down on its turnovers, and that made the difference.
“We stopped throwing the ball around,” Bronson said. “We made better decisions when we were on the outside, because when they made their runs we had some turnovers and then we kind of pouted a bit and didn’t get back on defense. When we didn’t give up easy baskets on their out-of-bounds plays, they had to work for things. That’s all you can ask for.”
Demmith came off the bench to score a team-high 11 points — nine in the opening half — for Lena.
“She’s got a lot of talent, but it usually seems like she’s up or she’s down. We don’t get a lot of in between,” Goldschmidt said. “She’s only a sophomore and we’re trying to gain some confidence with her, but she’s got the potential.”
Kendra Slempkes added 8 points for the Wildcats.
Coleman was led by Ashlee Mayer with 12 points.
After getting just one win in the first 12 games, Goldschmidt is hoping his players can start eliminating their mistakes as the postseason draws near.
“We just seem to do bad things at bad times and it always seems like the other team takes advantage of it when we’re making mistakes,” Goldschmidt said. “Hopefully it will turn around sooner or later.”
Lena (33)
Slempkes 4 0-0 8, Demmith 4 3-7 11, Bushmaker 2 0-0 4, Manning 2 0-1 4, Portier 1 0-0 2, Herald 1 0-0 2, Sylvester 1 0-0 2.
Coleman (48)
Kostreva 4 0-0 9, Meissner 4 1-2 9, Bieber 2 0-0 5, Marquardt 4 0-0 11, Mayer 6 0-0 12, Stycznski 1 0-2 2.
Coleman 25 23 – 48
Lena 15 18 – 33
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