Bowler High School sophomore Reanne Kietlinski came into the game at Gresham averaging 21 points per contest, and she did exactly that and more in a 49-33 victory Thursday night.
The sophomore guard scored 11 points in the first half, almost as many as Gresham scored as a team (13), while getting her teammates involved offensively.
“She’s an outstanding sophomore guard,” Bowler head coach AJ Miller said. “There’s two or three players in this conference that are head and shoulders above everybody else. She’s one of those as a sophomore. I look forward to having her for a long time.”
Neither team was able to find a basket until Gresham’s Mackenzie Hoffman hit a 3 with 14:30 remaining in the opening half. Kietlinski and the Panthers countered with a 9-0 run over the next three minutes.
The Wildcats wanted to control the tempo, but the shots weren’t falling, and they were not able to keep up with the high-powered Bowler offense.
“We are that patient, deliberately slow offense,” Gresham head coach Vaughn Miller said. “When you run that offense, and you aren’t shooting well, you don’t put up many points.”
The Wildcats have yet to win back-to-back games on the season, sitting at 4-7 overall and 1-6 in the Central Wisconsin Conference-10.
“(Bowler) actually played really, really good tonight, and we still kept it single digits for most of the game, so I’m happy,” Vaughn Miller said.
Miller has first-hand knowledge of the Bowler program; he was an assistant coach there for the past few years under his brother, AJ.
Gresham hit four 3s in the game, including two by Makena Arndt midway through the second half to cut the lead to 7.
“I definitely didn’t expect them to shoot so well from the outside, but kudos to them,” AJ Miller said. “They did a good job. The thing about my girls, is I tell them, ‘You’ve always got tot have an answer for everything a team does.’ And we did tonight.”
Kietlinski, Saychia Wayka, senior center Kenedie Malone and Taylor Matsche all hit shots down the stretch as Bowler pulled away.
“We could have shot the ball better, but I can’t complain,” AJ Miller said. “A win is a win, on the road, they are always tough when they are rival games.”
Behind Kietlinski’s 21 points, only three other Panthers scored. Malone added 12 points, Matsche 9 points and Wayka 6 points.
Bowler (9-3, 6-2 CWC-10) was able to tighten up defensively and get back to shutting a team down by limiting possessions.
“We lost a few close games down the stretch the other week,” AJ Miller said. “It was just flat out we got outrebounded, outhustled. We beat them in both those categories. That’s the difference at the end of the day.”
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Bowler (49)
Wayka 2 0-0 6, Matsche 3 2-2 9, Kietlinski 8 5-8 22, Malone 5 2-3 12.
Gresham (33)
Jensen 3 0-0 6, Arndt 3 0-0 8, Ta. Ferguson 2 0-0 5, T. Hoffman 2 0-0 4, M. Hoffman 2 0-0 5, Davids 1 0-0 2, Otradovec 1 1-2 3.
Bowler 23 26 — 49
Gresham 13 20 — 33
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