Rosholt girls basketball in hunt for CWC-10 Title
After finishing in the middle of the Central Wisconsin
Conference-10 (CWC-10) standings last year, the Rosholt High School
girls basketball team is in contention for the Conference Title this season.
The Hornets brought back two starters from last season’s
team that finished 12-11, but is off to an 8-3 start overall this season and is
in second place in the CWC-10 (6-1) behind Tri-County (10-1, 7-0).
Rosholt is set to play at Port Edwards (2-9, 2-5) at
then host Tigerton (2-8, 2-5) at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 19, as it heads into
the second half of the conference season.
“We have different girls stepping up each game,” said
fourth-year Rosholt girls basketball head coach Megan Boldig. “Overall, they’re
playing pretty well together.”
The Hornets lost three starters in Honorable Mention
All-CWC-10 guard Shantel Cordova, point guard Alex Neff, and forward Nikayla
Glodowski from last year’s team that finished 12-11 overall and was sixth in
the CWC-10 (9-9) behind Conference Champion Menominee Indian (16-2), Tri-County
(13-5), Wild Rose (13-5), Bowler (13-5) and Port Edwards (12-6).
This season, Rosholt is led by the return of First Team
All-CWC-10 senior 6-0 forward Bre Richter (14.4 points, 14.7 rebounds, 3.1
steals, 2.9 blocks per game this season), who will play basketball next season
at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point (UWSP), where her aunt Kari
(Groshek) Zdroik was an All-American on the Pointers’ 2002 NCAA Division III
National Championship team.
“I’ve always wanted to be like her,” said Richter. “I always
watched her when I was younger, and every year I’ve gone to games to watch
Point, and it’s just really exciting.
“It’s a whole new level,” she said.
“Bre’s continually doing a good job every single game,” said
Boldig. “Every team’s aware of who she is and what she’s going to do, and very
rarely can they stop her, even if they know what she’s going to do.
“She’s a team leader in every way,” she said. “Leading scorer,
leading rebounder, and she’s leading the team in steals and blocks too. She was
made to play this game.”
Senior 5-7 guard Taylor Kaminski (7.1 points, 5.2 rebounds,
2.4 assists) also returns as a starter for the team, while starting 5-10 senior
guard Erin Mlodik (5 points, 5.9 rebounds) was lost for the season due to an
injury against Bowler Thursday, Jan. 7.
“Taylor
is our main point guard, she’s aggressive with the ball, but she needs to take
care of it a little bit more,” said Boldig. “But she’s got strength in the
point guard position that this conference doesn’t really see that often.
“And we lost Erin last Thursday to a torn ACL within the
first three minutes of the game,” she said. “So that’s a starter we’re down,
and we’re adjusting to that.”
Junior 5-5 guard Lexi Cordova and 5-5 senior guard Andrea
Stroik have taken over larger roles in the backcourt, with 5-11 junior
forward/center Molly Andreae and 5-8 senior forward Shelby Richter earning
regular minutes in the frontcourt.
“Lexi’s very quiet on the court, but she’s very sneaky, she
knows how to cut and she’s a good three-point shooter,” said Boldig. “Andrea
has stepped up big now in the loss of Erin in
the last few games, she’s really quick and can run through a wall if you put it
in front of her.
“Molly is playing a good inside game defensively and
offensively,” she said. “And Shelby
is playing strong, doing what she needs to do, and is very adaptable. I can
tell her to do one thing and I know she’ll do that one thing and not worry
about anything else.”
Senior 5-6 forward Brea Yenter, 5-2 senior guard Haley
Turzinski and 5-4 junior guard Jenna Brandl are also part of the Hornets’
rotation, while 5-6 freshman guard Taylor Krogwold and 5-6 freshman Kenzie
Stalter remain in the mix on varsity.
Rosholt opened this season with nonconference wins over
Suring (45-32) and Pacelli (34-28) in November, before it beat Wild Rose
(37-34), Marion (39-30), Gresham
(44-28) and Almond-Bancroft (54-43) to start 4-0 in the CWC-10.
The Hornets dropped a 48-33 decision to conference leader
Tri-County Dec. 16, but came back with a 34-27 win at last season’s CWC-10
Champion Menominee Indian, before a 50-30 nonconference loss at
Weyauwega-Fremont and a 36-34 win at Bowler Jan. 7.
That led into Rosholt’s final nonconference game of the
regular season against Iola-Scandinavia (7-4, 2-3) at home Tuesday, Jan. 12.
The game was tight early, as the Hornets held a 15-11 lead
with
first half, before Iola went on an 18-4 run to carry a 27-19 lead into
halftime.
“We had way too many turnovers,” said Boldig. “And that’s
been something that we’ve been struggling with.
“We either hold the ball for too long and let the defense
adjust, or we pass too quick and our girls aren’t ready,” she said. “We’ve just
got to reduce that number, and we’ll be a much better team.”
Rosholt was within 29-23 with 16:17 left, but Iola used its
pressure defense to spark a 12-2 run that increased its lead to 41-25 with
12:30 to play.
Iola remained in control the rest of the way to close out a
62-42 win; while Bre Richter finished with 25 points, 11 rebounds and four
steals; and Stroik had six points to lead the Hornets.
“We had a lot of turnovers,” said Bre Richter. “It’s hard to
work the ball around all of the time, and we have to keep making solid passes
and use fakes to get open passes and not commit turnovers.”
“I like having these games, because the pressure is
completely different than what we see in our conference,” said Boldig. “We very
rarely see the type of pressure and the type of balance from teams in the CWC-8
than we would see in the CWC-10.
“We went out and we got Wega to play us instead of playing a
lower Division team, and we will continue to play Iola,” she said. “It’s the
pressure, and it does so much more for us, because you can’t even mimic that in
practice.”
The Hornets were set to return to CWC-10 play at Port
Edwards Thursday, and next week will host Tigerton Tuesday, Jan. 19, and Wild
Rose (4-7, 4-3) at
Friday, Jan. 22.
Almost halfway through the conference schedule, Tri-County
(7-0) holds a one-game lead over Rosholt (6-1), with Bowler (8-3, 5-2), Menominee
Indian (9-3, 5-2) and Wild Rose also in contention.
“Tri-County’s beatable, but they’re tough,” said Boldig.
“You’ve got to play a good, solid game to beat them, you can’t have too many
turnovers, and you can’t have too many mistakes.
“We beat Menominee when we played them, but they were
without one of their strongest players, and all of the games that we’ve had so
far with Menominee, Bowler, Tri-County and Wild Rose have been tighter ones,”
she said. “And if we reduce our number of turnovers, it’s a whole different
game.
“We play Tri-County in a little less than a month (Feb. 9),
and every game we’re looking at what we need to do against them, what’s not
going to work and what’s going to work,” she said. “But we’re going to have to
play pretty good against those teams to make sure that we can step up and take
that Conference Title.”
Boldig said the team’s biggest goal all season has been to
play together and play as a team, and make sure they’re always looking at
everybody on the court.
“In the past four years, I’ve seen a lot more confidence
grow on the offensive end, which is nice to see, because it wasn’t always there
before,” said Boldig. “There were a lot of girls that were OK with somebody
else scoring all of the points, and I want everyone to be aggressive.
“We do a lot of shooting drills, but our major focus is
rebounding and defense, making sure we’re crashing the boards hard, boxing out
hard and making sure we are always keeping the girls in front of us on defense.
“But it’s an amazing team to coach, on and off the court
they’re a great group of girls,” she said. “And I just want to keep them
working hard.”