By Robert Whitmire

The WIAA girls basketball trail continues Monday night for the SPASH Panthers following their 69 – 61 win at Neenah Saturday.

The Panthers will travel to Appleton West, the No. 2 seed in the bracket for a 7 PM tip off. The Terrors edged Wisconsin Rapids Lincoln 53 – 49 to advance.

The Panther win avenges a season opening loss to the Rockets 70 – 49 back in November.

Maggie Negaard, who missed much of the season with a knee injury, was the game’s leading scorer for SPASH lighting up the board with 20 points and dishing out seven assists. Leah Earnest scored 18 points on 8 of 13 shooting from field and hauled down 10 rebounds.

West finished third in the Fox Valley Association regular season with a 13 – 5 record, 18 – 5 overall. They were led by Zoey Zuleger in scoring averaging 11.8 points per game. Jenna Hoffman leads the team in rebounds with a 7.7 per game average.

The panthers finished their conference season with a 6 – 6 record, good for fourth place in the Wisconsin Valley Conference.

Freshman Leah Earnest is the team’s leading scorer averaging 12.3 points per game and 5.2 ppg. Rachel Sullivan is the team’s leads the team in rebounds averaging 6.4 ppg.

The winner of Monday night’s contest will move on to face the No. 1 seed, Appleton North, a 62 – 47 winner over Oshkosh North, on Thursday, March 2 at Appleton East.

SPASH Scoring

Maggie Negaard 20, Leah Earnest 18, Madisyn Rogan 11; Rachel Sullivan 7; Kaylin Kostuchowski 6; Brooke Tuszka 4; Halle Gregorich 3.