Mounder girls crush Cardinals

SPRING VALLEY — The Elk Mound girls ran their record to 5-2 (4-2 conference) with a 57-33 slamming of the Spring Valley Cardinals Dec.  21.

When Elk Mound coach Jordan Kongshaug said he thought his team’s half court defense was outstanding on the Cardinals home court, he wasn’t kidding as the Mounders came up with 27 steals in the game, five by McKenna McVey.

“We were able to pressure the basketball to create turnovers and we also scored a lot of points in transition,” he said.

Josie Hayes and Kaysi Meindel combined for 43 of the Elk Mound points as they picked up all 20 of the team points in the first quarter when Hayes hit five buckets with a trio of free throws and Meindel connected twice from short range and once from behind the arc. The defense held the Cardinals to 10 points in the quarter, and the first half was relatively close as the Mounders took a 28-19 lead into the break.

“We struggled early offensively and didn’t move the ball very well,” Kongshaug said. “Spring Valley played very hard and we didn’t rotate well on our press,” he added.

Meindel came up big in the third stanza with 10 points and Anna Sessions scored all four of her points in the game in the fourth to help the Mounders seal the victory.

Hayes led all scorers with 22 points while Meindel added 21. Hayes also snared five rebounds as did McVey, while McVey and Sarah Winchester both assisted their teammates three times. The team struggled from the foul line as they knocked down just 11 of 25 attempts.

ELK MOUND (57) J. Hayes 8-5-5-22, Meindel 9-2-6-21, Winchester 2-0-2-6, Sessions 2-0-1-4, E. Hayes 0-2-2-2, J. Solem 0-1-2-1

SPRING VALLEY (33) N. Schlegel 6-1-2-13, E. Hofacker 5-0-0-10, T. Leach 1-0-0-2, E. Brorsen 1-0-0-2, S. O’Brien 1-0-0-2, T. O’Keefe 1-0-0-2, ?-1-0-0-2

THREE POINTERS: Winchester 2, J. Hayes 1, Meindel 1