Make that 51: Colfax girls finish off third straight undefeated conference season

In a game that was moved up a day due to a conflict with the Ladysmith wrestling team, the Colfax girls’ basketball team traveled north to take on the Ladysmith Lumberjills in a Monday night contest Feb. 16. With help from 10 three point shots, the Vikings came home with a 50-26 win. They finished off the regular season with their 51st consecutive conference win by pounding Elmwood-Plum City 54-32. It marked the third season in a row the girls have won the conference with a perfect record, with their last loss coming against Boyceville back on Feb. 7 of 2012. Colfax ended the season with a 19-3 record and with a number one seed in the regional, received a first round bye. They will host the winner of the Boyceville-Glenwood City game this Friday night at 7:00.

Ladysmith

The Lumberjills have had some competitive teams over the past few years but after losing a ton of seniors from last year were sitting in the middle of the Heart O’ North Conference at 6-6 and were 8-11 overall. To say the game got off to a slow start for both teams may be an understatement as the score was just 6-4 in Ladysmith’s favor after the first quarter.

But the Colfax girls must have thawed out from the long ride with the outside temperature hovering around zero because they lit the gym on fire from long range, canning seven triples in the second stanza. Dannielle Dachel and Alexis Rudi both drained three of them, Andrea Brantner added another while Katie Christoffel and Chey Olson both dropped in a deuce to open up a 29-10 halftime advantage.

“After starting very slowly, we got charged and had a lot more energy in the second quarter,” coach Joe Doucette said. “I’m not sure what happened but we played really well by defending, moving the ball and making a bunch of shots.”

Dachel wasn’t done from behind the arc yet as she dropped in two more triples in the third stanza and with three short range shots from Karina Wait, Colfax was up 41-19 after three quarters of play. The Vikings finished off their scoring with a Christoffel trey, two deuces from Brantner and another by Wait for the 24 point margin of victory.

“Although we are near the end of a very good regular season, we need to keep improving and even take our game to another level,” Doucette said.

Dachel finished with 17 points with five treys and Rudi added nine points on a trio of triples. The foul line was not very busy for the night as the Vikings were 0 for 2 and the Lumberjills were 1 for 6.

COLFAX (50) Dachel 6-0-0-17, Rudi 3-0-0-9, Wait 4-0-0-8, Brantner 3-0-0-7, Christoffel 2-0-0-5, Olson 2-0-0-4

LADYSMITH (26) M. Malec 4-0-0-8, M. Read 3-0-4-6, B. Keeble 2-1-2-5, T. Gibbs1-0-0-3, L. Sarauer 1-0-0-2, E. Engelhardt 1-0-0-2

THREE POINTERS: Dachel 5, Rudi 3, Christoffel 1, Brantner 1, Gibbs 1

Elmwood-Plum City

There wasn’t a problem getting started in this game as the Vikings took control from the get go with 22 first quarter points while holding the Wolves to just five. Olson came up with seven of those points, Dachel added five, Wait four and Rudi and Christoffel both canned a triple.

Dempsey Fogarty and Dachel both dropped in a deuce and a trey in the second stanza for a 32-11 halftime lead. Wait led the Vikings in the third with three short range shots while Ally Heidorn came up with six fourth quarter points to help finish off the win.

“I was impressed with the way we came out and played and took care of business,” Doucette said. “We moved the ball well and chased down our misses. The big lead allowed us to rest some players and give some other kids some valuable experience. It is great to be conference champs again and to have 19 wins with our tough schedule,” he added.

Scoring was a little more balanced this game with Dachel finishing with 12 points, Olson 11 and Wait 10. E-PC’s Cheyanne Caturia, who averages 12 points a game, was held to just four.

COLFAX (54) Dachel 5-0-0-12, Olson 5-1-2-11, Wait 5-0-0-10, Heidorn 2-3-6-7, Fogarty 2-0-0-5, Rudi 1-0-0-3, Christoffel 1-0-0-3, Brantner 1-0-0-2, B. Buchanan 0-1-4-1

ELMWOOD-PLUM CITY (32) T. Chilson 3-3-4-9, J. Weix 2-3-4-7, R. Kernstock 1-5-8-7, Caturia 2-0-0-4, S. Hall 1-0-0-3, J. Kannel 1-0-0-2

THREE POINTERS: Dachel 2, Rudi 1, Fogarty 1, Christoffel 1, Hall 1