Familiar faces return to Rib Lake girls hoops

RIB LAKE GIRLS HOOPS PREVIEW

It’s been nine months, but a nice run to end the 2020-21 season put a positive jolt into Rib Lake’s girls basketball program and now, a couple of familiar faces are hoping to carry that forward into this year and beyond.

Wayne and Nancy Mann, who were the varsity and JV coaches during one of the program’s longest runs of success in the late 1990s through mid 2000s, are back in those positions overseeing a team that possesses a lot of varsity experience but also knows it still needs to get better to challenge the top programs in the Marawood Conference on a consistent basis.

The positive vibes from winning three of the last five games last winter and advancing to the WIAA Division 5 regional final may have helped spark a resurgence in interest with participation numbers climbing to 23 by the end of last week. They also produced a string of strong two-a-day practices until a good chunk of the roster got quarantine notices late on Friday afternoon.

That was tough news to get prior to an opening week where Rib Lake has three games on the schedule. But Wayne Mann said the Lady Redmen will get through the week playing with whoever is available and will go from there as the team aims to improve from its 5-13 record of 2020-21, a season that also started with a two-week quarantine delay.

“It’s a tough start but I guess you have to live with it,” Mann said Monday. “We first found that out about half an hour before Friday night’s practice, so it was kind of a downer for everybody. Otherwise the practices have been real competitive and a good positive note for everybody.”

Rib Lake’s short-handed squad dropped its non-conference opener 6639 at Columbus Catholic Tuesday and gets a major challenge tonight, Thursday, when it hosts Marawood North favorite Phillips at 7:15 p.m. Flambeau is in for a non-conference play Friday before Chequamegon comes into town for a league game on Tuesday prior to the Thanksgiving break.

When the squad gets back to full strength, Mann is expecting to start the year with a varsity roster of 12 players, eight of whom are seniors. Many of them saw significant court time last winter.

The list includes Lauren Pelnis and Molly Heiser, who both got All-Marawood North honorable mention nods for their play last year.

Pelnis ended the season on a roll, scoring 23 points in the WIAA regional opener against Owen-Withee, a 57-35 win, then adding 15 points in the team’s memorable 56-54 regional semifinal win at Prentice and 15 more in the 66-38 regional final loss at Athens. She averaged 8.9 points, 5.7 rebounds, 1.9 steals and 1.2 assists per game. Heiser averaged 3.4 points and 3.7 rebounds in 18 games.

Rebekah Strobach, Reagan Reinhardt, Tia Bube, Emily Rodman, Tiara Kestler and Hannah Schuh round out the senior class. Reinhardt, Bube and Rodman missed a good chunk of last season with injuries but are back healthy now.

Junior Kamy Annala returns after building some confidence in some quality minutes late last year. Sophomores Danielle Mann and Josie Scheithauer are also building on strong finishes. Mann had double- digit scoring outputs in the playoff wins over Owen-Withee and Prentice and Scheithauer had a couple strong outings in Rib Lake’s good five-game stretch to end the year as well.

Freshman Addison Gumz will get a look at the varsity level as well early on. Overall, Mann said the freshman class impressed in the first week.

Unlike last year’s COVID slowdown, the team was able to play some summer basketball, most notably in a six-week league in Marathon, and did some work on its own to get ready.

“Even before the season they held some open gyms and ran some practices by themselves with no supervision,” he said. “They were rarin’ to go when they came in Monday morning. We ran twoa- days for the whole week because we ended up with three games this coming week. They had really good attitudes and they were excited about getting rolling.”

As the Manns are getting a feel early on for what they have on the overall roster and what offensive and defensive strategies the girls will execute best, there is one focus getting drilled into everyone’s minds in practice –– the need to reduce turnovers. The Redmen averaged 23 giveaways per game last year and nearly 28 per game the year before.

“We really worked a lot on pushing the ball up the court and staying wide,” Wayne Mann said. “We’ve worked a lot on the spacing and pushing the ball but not trying to jam everything in. If we’re going to be successful, we’re going to have to rebound and get the turnovers down. I’ve been hammering that from day one. Ten to 12 turnovers a game, that’s the magic number. They’ve had some good practices on it. At the end of last week, they were just trying to take the safe route on the passing and not trying to jam everything in. That’s been kind of a focus point.”

Another goal is to shoot the ball better. Shooting percentage is another area that’s been tough on Rib Lake’s teams in recent years. Last year, the team shot about 28% from the field and 45% from the free throw line. Rib Lake made 19 3-point shots in 18 games.

Defensively, the Redmen have been known for effort and scrappiness. It remains to be seen what will end up being the team’s go-to defensive approach, though Mann knows what he’d like to see at some point, if possible.

“Eventually I’d like to do some fullcourt pressure on some of these teams, but that’s going to come later in the season,” he said. “I didn’t want to totally overwhelm them now. That’s something down the road we’ll work on it. We’ve been working on some 1-3-1 zone, a little 2-3, some man, right now. We’ll mix it in. From what I’m seeing they’re still strongest in their man and I’m kind of surprised by that. But we’re going to have to play some zones at one time or another. That’ll be a priority as we get toward Christmas to work on some of that stuff in practices.” In the Marawood North, Rib Lake got a win over Abbotsford last year and beat a very young Chequamegon team in what was considered a non-conference game. Phillips went undefeated in North play at 11-0 and reached the Division 4 sectional final round where it lost to Fall Creek and finished 19-2. The Loggers return most of the key pieces from that team and start the year as the oddson favorite to repeat.

Athens might have something to say about that as the Blue Jays return virtually their entire roster as well after making a run to the Division 5 sectional final, which it lost to Three Lakes.

For Rib Lake, the immediate goal is to keep improving and getting the program headed back in the right direction.

“I hope we’re a totally different looking team come Christmas time versus where we are now,” Mann said. “You hope that they all buy into the system. We’re looking to build a program for some years here again. That’s the goal.”