Lady Eagles drop two GNC games; Pines confident entering new week

After some close calls, the Northland Pines girls’ basketball team was searching for its first win in nine games, but came up short in a road loss, 28-62, to Mosinee Jan. 7 and dropping a 26-64 home game to Medford Jan. 9.
The Eagles took the trip down to Central Wisconsin last Tuesday to face one of the premier teams in the Great Northern Conference.
It was a tough break as the Eagles quickly fell behind and took a 12-48 game into halftime.
“Mosinee was honestly our biggest struggle of the year,” said Pines head coach Jaclyn Halsey. “Twenty-two turnovers and two rebounds in the first half may be a new record we never want to break again. This group of girls is known for their fight. They play hard, no matter what the circumstances, and that’s why I love to coach this team. Tuesday, though, got the best of us.”
Despite the lop-sided score, Halsey said the Mosinee press didn’t really make the team flustered, it was the self-inflicted wounds that caused the Eagles to fall behind.

“Their press wasn’t a major issue for us. The only time their press truly was working is when we made our own mistakes by losing the ball,” she said. “However, we cut, reserved, and found the gaps in the press with ease. We just needed to clean up our personal passing and ball handling.”
Senior guard Vienna Klemett led the team offensively, as she showed her shooting range by going 4-for-7 from behind the 3-point line. She finished with a team-high 14 points.
“Vienna took a major leadership role in this game. We had a scary amount of turnovers, and she only contributed 2 to that tally while playing a majority of the game,” Halsey said about her senior guard. “When I asked for more energy and accountability to make things happen, I saw a conscious effort from her to do so in the second half.”
Eden Smith also tallied her first varsity points of her career in the game.

Medford loss

Entering a game inside its own fieldhouse, Northland Pines had a refreshed mindset heading into a contest with the Raiders.
“We came into this game with a much better mentality. Energy was up, we were getting rebounds, less turnovers, and finally getting to the line for some free throw,” explained Halsey.
Defensively, a main focus was to control the offensive production of Medford’s Kayla Baumgartner, who is averaging just about 14 points per game for the Raiders. The Eagles held her to just nine points despite Medford pouring it on and ultimately dominating the scoreboard.
“We talked about being aware of Medford’s Baumgartner on our defense, and making some small changes in our half-court trap when she was on the floor,” stated Halsey. “We executed that well, holding her to nine points all game, and doing our best to attack her on the offensive end to draw fouls. Unfortunately, the flip side of that was we didn’t do as well with Medford’s Klingbell, who dropped 25 points on us.”
The Eagles had plenty of opportunity on offense, putting up 48 shots, with most of them coming inside the 3-point line. Pines only made six field goals and 2-for-6 from distance. With an aggressive attack, the Eagles also attempted 16 free throws in the loss. Halsey mentioned that she liked most of the shot-attempts, but now they need to be converted.

“Most of them were all good shots to take, but we failed to knock them down. Going into this week’s practice we will be focusing more on our offensive game, working on how to create opportunities to score, and cleaning up our shots so that we can benefit from our efforts,” she said.
The Eagles are back in action this week with a busy slate of home games, which started with a home game versus Antigo on Tuesday.
Pine will face Bowler at home Thursday at 7:30 p.m. before waiting until Saturday afternoon to face Gillett in a girls/boys doubleheader starting at 2:30 p.m.