Girls Basketball: Oconto Falls finishes strong to earn road win

CLINTONVILLE — Oconto Falls senior Natalie Brauer hit the go-ahead shot with about 18 seconds to play and then secured a game-sealing offensive rebound with under five seconds left to lift the Panthers to a 54-51 North Eastern Conference victory over Clintonville on Thursday.

Despite dealing with foul trouble throughout the game and trailing by eight points with 6 minutes, 30 seconds to play, Oconto Falls was still able to secure the road win by ending the game on a 15-4 run.

“It’s a big win. Clintonville is a nice team and they’ve been on a roll, so to come into their place and beat them, yeah, it’s going to give us confidence,” said Oconto Falls coach Mike Kaczmarek Jr. “We’ve got to clean some things up but by battling back through adversity in the second half, I think it’s going to speak volumes down the stretch.”

After Clintonville hit a 3-pointer to go up 47-39, Oconto Falls senior Kari Albrecht buried a triple of her own. Brauer added a field goal a minute later to cut the team’s deficit to three.

A pair of Clintonville free throws pushed the deficit back to five with just over four minutes to play, but Panther senior Morgan Helmle answered with a 3-pointer. After the hosting Truckers missed the first free throw of a 1-and-1 opportunity, Albrecht drilled another 3-pointer to give Oconto Falls the lead with just over two-and-and-half minutes to play.

Both teams missed free throws over the next couple minutes before Clintonville called timeout with 41.7 seconds to play, with Oconto Falls still leading 50-49.

The Truckers converted a shot near the 33-second mark, but the Panthers were able to answer with Brauer’s field goal.

Clintonville had a chance to tie or take the lead with 9.9 seconds left, but missed a pair of free throws.

Oconto Falls junior McKayla Goebel was fouled and sent to the free-throw line for a one-and-one opportunity with 8.5 seconds left — she hit the first shot before missing the second. Oconto Falls grabbed the loose ball and then called timeout with 4.9 seconds left.

Brauer was fouled with 3 seconds left, making the first free throw and then grabbing an offensive rebound after missing the second shot. Brauer missed a putback attempt, but the clock ran out in the process, sealing Oconto Falls’ wild win.

“I think this shows that we can finish games — there’s lots of teams that can’t finish games. I feel like like that’s where our momentum came in. We all stood up and we were really confident that we were going to win the game,” said Brauer.

“We just brought up our intensity when we had to and just played our game. When it came down to the line, we stepped it up,” said Albrecht. “We made our shots, got to the basket, played good defense — we all just played good as a team.”

Albrecht finished with a team-leading 18 points for Oconto Falls, carrying the team for much of the first half when it was battling serious foul trouble. Albrecht scored all eight of her first-half points in the first eight minutes to give the visitors a 14-6 lead.

Goebel, Brauer and Albrecht all picked up two fouls within the first 11 minutes of the game. Brauer was tagged for her third foul at the 4:44 mark before Albrecht picked up her third at the 3:21 mark.

Goebel and Helmle each knocked down two triples in the first half and finished the game with nine points each. Brauer finished with 12 points.

The foul issues forced Kaczmarek to limit his starters minutes in the second half, but the girls off the bench kept the Truckers from pulling away.

“The bench really stepped up a notch tonight. They kept us in the game, they kept us where they had to be,” said Kaczmarek. “We had good possessions (offensively), and defensively they might have been overmatched but they did a nice job of getting stops when they needed to.”

Oconto Falls 28 26 — 54

Clintonville 31 20 — 51

Oconto Falls (54): Natalie Brauer 2-4 12, Morgan Helmle 0-0 9, Alexis Euclide 0-0 2, McKayla Goebel 3-7 9, Hailey Peitersen 0-0 4, Kari Albrecht 0-0 18.

Clintonville (51): Elly Arndt 2-2 7, Abby King 0-0 2, Selina Torrez 4-7 8, Lauren Zwirschitz 1-2 1, Jordan Lehman 3-6 7, Erin Viergutz 3-5 23, Hannah Strong 0-2 3.

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