Midway through the third quarter of Friday’s game against Tigerton, the Menominee Indian High School girls basketball team was all smiles on the court.
Leading 50-17 on their way to a 63-25 rout, who could blame them.
“They’re seeing the work that they’ve been doing pay off,” Menominee Indian coach Chris Rice said. “They’re having a lot of fun playing basketball. When you can do that, the game comes a lot easier to you and it’s a lot more enjoyable.”
The Eagles (2-0, 1-0 Central Wisconsin Conference-10), who won their season opener over Lena 63-28 in a similar fashion, used tough defense and a versatile offense to gain the upper hand on CWC-10 foe Tigerton (0-3, 0-1).
“Our defensive intensity is really high,” Rice said. “We’re pressuring the ball, we’re getting turnovers, working as hard as we can on defense. When we go on offense, we try to slow it down a little bit, and catch our breath then and get ready for the second run when they come back down the court again.”
Menominee Indian opened the game with 10-1 run. The trio of Erin Wynos, a senior guard; Sasha Peters, a senior forward, and Ania Smith, a junior guard/forward, each scored six points in the first quarter to give the Eagles an 18-3 advantage.
Peters, who was relentless under the basket playing Tigerton senior forward Katie Watters, had a game-high 21 points.
“She’s improved her game,” Rice said. “Her coordination is so much better this year than it was last year. That’s from her working out in the weight room.”
Smith added 19 points, mostly under the basket after scoring 22 mostly from the perimeter in the opener.
“She’s showing how versatile she can be,” Rice said. “She’s a very good player, and a well-rounded player.”
While Rice is pleased with his team’s success, he warns his team still has a lot of work to do.
“We’re going to get into the meat of our schedule here pretty soon,” Rice said. “We’ll see some teams with more senior leadership, and more players that will make it a little more challenging. Tigerton, they have a good program. They’re down in numbers this year.”
Watters led Tigerton with 10 points, scoring seven after halftime.
Tigerton 3 7 7 8 — 25
Menominee Indian 18 16 16 13 — 63
Tigerton (25)
Desrochers 1 1-2 3, L. Minniecheske 0 0-2 0, Watters 4 2-4 10, Marquardt 1 2-4 4, Gauthier 2 2-2 6, Anheuser 0 2-8 2
Menominee Indian (63)
Mahkimetas 3 0-2 7, Wynos 5 0-0 11, Peters 10 1-4 21, J. Waukau 1 0-0 2, Smith 8 3-6 19, Chevalier 1 0-0 2, S. Waukau 0 1-2 1
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