Lady Mounders look for big season

With all five starters, four who were All Conference players returning from last year’s team, folks around Elk Mound are hoping this could be the year the Mounder girls’ basketball team gets over the hump and wins a conference championship. Losing just one  player, reserve Jordan Sorenson through graduation, the Mounders will have plenty of experience when they hit the court with a home game against Stanley-Boyd Nov. 17.

Elk Mound finished 16-8 a year ago and 12-2 in conference play, placing them second with their only two losses coming from conference champion Colfax. They ended the season in the second round of regionals against Eau Claire Regis, but they won’t have to worry about playing them again since the Mounders move back up to Division 3 for tournament play this year.

Seniors McKenna McVey and Sarah Winchester lead the troops with McVey averaging 13.6 points per game as a junior while Winchester averaged 9.5 ppg. Both were named First Team AC while junior Elizabeth Fasbender, a Second Team pick scored 9.4 ppg and fellow junior Kami King was an honorable mention selection. Also returning is sophomore Allie Weber who stepped into the starting lineup soon after the season started. The bench looks pretty strong as well with returning letterwinners Megan Krall, Riley Radtke and Hannah Cedarblade while others expecting to get time on the court include Kaitlyn Baier, Madysen Borofka, Maddie Jenson, Crista Sweeney, Emily Winchester and Morgan Radtke.

“Our goal is to keep getting better throughout the season so that we can make a good run in the tournament,” head coach Jordan Kongshaug said. “”With our experience, I expect that we can be competitive every night. We should be able to get out and run and should be successful pressuring the basketball. We will need to rebound better and score more consistently in the half court than we did last year if we want to reach our goals,” he added.

When asked who he thought would be the strongest competition in the D-SC, Kongshaug replied: “I think I say this every year but until someone knocks Colfax off, they are the team to beat,” he said with a laugh.”They lost a lot of starters from last year but they keep reloading. Durand should be pretty good and Glenwood City has a strong nucleus of players returning. But we hope to be in the mix.”