The law of averages is pretty clear about the can’t-win-‘em-all thing.
But all throughout this special season the Menominee Indian High School girls have made it clear that you can keep all of the prognostications and actuarial mandates. They would prefer to just play basketball.
Picked in the preseason to finish sixth in the Central Wisconsin Conference-10, Menominee made it a cool 15 in a row Tuesday night, racing to a big early lead against visiting Marion and cruising to a 50-34 win to stay perfect on the year.
The Lady Eagles (15-0, 13-0 CWC-10) used a variety of smothering zone and man-to-man pressure defenses to keep the Lady Mustangs (8-8, 6-6 CWC-10) on their heels for much of the night, and despite a spirited effort by the visitors to make a run at spoiling the undefeated season, Menominee simply had too much.
With the school’s first girls basketball conference title virtually salted away — the Lady Eagles are three games up in the loss column and playing with measured, purposeful abandon, the focus naturally turns to what lies ahead.
“We’ve got a good chance to compete for a regional title,” said Menominee’s Chris Rice, whose next taste of defeat will be his first as a head coach. “But we know teams will be prepared for us. They’ll be bringing their offense. We just want to keep improving every week, every game.”
Menominee, which got 17 points from Ania Smith, 15 from Sasha Peters and nine from Taylor Mahkimetas, jumped in front of Marion 10-0 and never looked back. Equally impressive as her point total were Smith’s four assists from the high post.
“I try to spread it around in the offense,” she said. “I don’t want to be the only one we rely on to score. We knew we were going to be pretty good this year. I don’t know if anyone figured we’d be undefeated right now. Our goal is to win the regional and go from there.”
Marion, to its credit, whittled a 20-point deficit to 10 in the second half on a three-point play by Abby Polzin with 2:06 left in the third quarter before Menominee re-took control. Polzin’s eight points tied for team-high with Kayla Brei.
“The kids played hard,” Marion coach Scott Bauman said. “We were just too shy attacking the basket. When we got it close, we committed too many turnovers. That’s been our M.O. for a lot of the season. We’ve been too inconsistent.”
Marion (34)
P. Polzin 3 0-2 7, Gilliam 1 0-0 3, Sawall 1 1-4 3, Greene-Gretzinger 0 0-4 0, Radies 0 1-2 1, A. Polzin 2 3-8 8, Brei 1 0-0 2, Watters 1 0-0 2, Detert 4 0-1 8.
Menominee Indian (50)
Chevalier 1 0-0 2, Mahkimetas 3 2-2 9, M. Waukau 2 1-2 5, Peters 7 1-5 15, J. Waukau 1 0-0 2, Smith 7 1-1 17, Shawanokasic 0 0-1 0.
Marion 3 6 17 8 — 34
Menominee Indian 14 12 11 13 — 50
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