After delay, Lady Redmen get Marawood play started
RIB LAKE GIRLS BASKETBALL
After being sidelined by a quarantine snag, the Rib Lake girls basketball finally got its season underway with a pair of Marawood Conference losses.
The second of those was a 53-22 defeat in Marathon Monday night in a conference crossover game that was pushed back 10 days from its originally-scheduled date.
Playing without senior Nellie Hopkins, the Lady Redmen struggled mightily in the first half offensively and found themselves trailing 26-4 at the break. Things got better in the second half on the offensive end, but the Red Raiders continued to pad their lead and easily improved 3-4 overall. They are 1-2 in Marawood play.
“It felt like we took a step back and reverted to our old ways of turning the ball over way too many times, especially early in the first half,” Rib Lake head coach Mike Wudi said. “Marathon played an aggressive style of half court man-to-man defense and we did not handle that well at all. We did not look to attack the basket and our passing was poor. We played better in the second half, but you cannot dig a hole as deep as we did in the first half.”
Marathon got scoring from six different players while building its first-half lead, led by Allison Wokatsch’s eight points and Hope Krautkramer’s six. Wokatsch added a pair of second-half 3-pointers to finish with a game-high 14. Anna Cleven scored six in the second half to finish with nine and Krautkramer wound up with eight for the Red Raiders.
Lauren Pelnis scored all eight of her points in the second half and led Rib Lake. She hit two 3-point shots and also grabbed six rebounds and had a steal. Jolee Gehrke had four points, two steals and a rebound. Reagan Reinhardt scored four points, a steal and a rebound.
“Jolee had a nice game coming off the bench, attacking the rim and being aggressive on defense,” Wudi said.
Tia Bube added a second-half hoop, a rebound and a steal. Kamy Annala and Danielle Mann scored their first baskets of the season in the second half. Rebekah Strobach had five rebounds.
Rib Lake was scheduled to visit Marawood North-leading Phillips for a make-up date on Tuesday. That game was played after the early holiday deadline for The Star News. Rib Lake will be at Prentice for a Marawood North battle with the Buccaneers on Jan. 4.
Athens 53, Rib Lake 34
Rib Lake finally opened its season Friday and played a strong first half before running out of gas and falling 53-34 to visiting Athens, a team that was already playing its seventh game of the season.
The Lady Redmen hung point-forpoint with the Blue Jays until the last three minutes of the first half when an 11-2 run gave Athens a 32-23 halftime lead. Rib Lake wasn’t able to make a dent in that lead in the second half and the Jays improved to 3-2 in Marawood play and 4-3 overall at the time.
“Opening night finally and we had a lot of nerves playing a team that had six games already played,” Wudi said. “We played well for a lot of the first half. I think we got tired in the second half. Our interior post defense allowed Athens to many easy inside baskets. We did not adjust well in the second half to their zone defense.”
Rib Lake offset two early 3s by Athens’ Kaitlyn Riehle with a basket by Strobach, a long jumper from Reinhardt and two scores from Hopkins to take an 8-6 lead. Athens went on a 13-3 run to grab a 19-11 lead, before Hopkins and Pelnis sparked a 10-2 surge that got Rib Lake right back in it. Hopkins scored twice, the second of which came in transition off a Pelnis assist. Pelnis and Reinhardt sandwiched scores around a basket by Athens post McKennzie Schug. Pelnis made a nice move on the baseline and scored again to knot things up at 21-21.
But Schug scored and was fouled off a lob pass inside. She was injured on the play, but Addison Lavicka came in and made the free throw. Athens went to a 1-3-1 zone, which shut down the Redmen for the rest of the half. Jazelle Hartwig scored five points in the run that put Athens up by nine at half.
Athens opened the second half with an 11-3 surge that extended the lead to 43-26 before Pelnis buried a 3-pointer with just over 10 minutes left. Athens countered with a Schug hoop and a Celina Ellenbecker 3. Riehle rattled in another 3 as well, making it 51-31 with 6:30 left.
Pelnis, back in the lineup after her 2019-20 season was cut short by injury, gave Rib Lake a much-needed offensive spark and led the team with 13 points. She added three rebounds and two steals. Hopkins had 10 points, including eight in the first half. She had three steals and a rebound.
“Lauren played well attacking the basket through the night,” Wudi said. “Nellie had a strong first half.”
Reinhardt scored six points. Bube added three points and three rebounds and Strobach finished with two points. Molly Heiser grabbed a team-high four rebounds.
Schug led Athens with 17 points, while Riehle and Lavicka hit double figures with 13 and 10 respectively.
“It was good to finally get a game in,” Wudi said.
