Boyceville girls drop conference contests to Colfax and Spring Valley

Wins have been at premium for the Boyceville girls basketball team this season as it has struggled on the offensive end.

There was no relief to Boyceville’s shooting woes last week as it dropped a pair of road conference games.

Spring Valley nipped Boyceville by a point last Tuesday, January 26. Following the 48-47 setback, Boyceville was nearly doubled up in Colfax three days later, losing 41-22 to the Vikings.

With the losses, the Bulldogs are 3-7 in conference play and 4-12 overall.

Colfax

After losing to the Colfax Vikings 58-23 back in December, the Boyceville girls basketball team played a much better defensive game this time around but dropped the contest to the same Viking team 41-22 in Colfax Jan. 29.

“We knew we had to do two things if we wanted to make it a close game,” Bulldog coach Jolene Bird said. “Because Colfax has good shooters, we needed to get them out of their comfort zone offensively. And we had to get the ball in the basket consistently ourselves. We only did one of the two and the result was a loss,” she added.

Boyceville forced the Vikings into 12 turnovers in the game and by contesting many of their shots, Colfax made just 1 of 22 three point attempts. But the Bulldogs missed too many open shots from close range and from behind the arc and ended up playing from behind from the start.

After falling behind 4-0, Marki Lagerstrom canned a triple to start the Boyceville scoring but the score went to 13-3 before Boyceville struck again on a short jumper from Morgan Kuhn. Brooklyn Booth then lit a small fire under the Bulldogs when she knocked down back-to-back triples in a 20 second span to cut the deficit to seven at 18-11. Boyceville came up empty on their next five possessions however, which allowed Colfax to hold a 25-11 lead at the half.

“We moved the ball well and had plenty of open shots,” Bird said. “But for some reason they are just not falling for us.”

Boyceville fell behind 31-11 after committing  two turnovers and missing a couple of free throws before Cassie Malean drained a triple. After Madysn Riek, Emma Harnisch and Jenna Beyrer all scored from close range, Boyceville was down 37-20 with nine minutes left. The Bulldog’s defense forced a couple of Colfax turnovers but only capitalized once off them when Riek scored from under the hoop to make it 37-22 with seven minutes left. That would be all the scoring Boyceville would muster after misfiring on several more shot attempts while committing their seventh team foul with six minutes left. The Vikings went to the foul line four times in the final minutes and hit five free throws to seal the win.

“Our girls defended pretty well and kept their big shooters under control,” Bird said. “But we have to figure out how to score because there are too many good shooting teams in our conference. Playing good defense isn’t enough to win games,” she added.

Booth finished with six points to lead the Bulldogs. Riek added four, Lagerstrom and Malean both had three while Beyrer, Harnisch and Kuhn all finished with two points.

Boyceville will host conference leading Elk Mound Tuesday, January 2.

Spring Valley

The game in Spring Valley January 26 was a close affair throughout.

But once again the Bulldogs struggled on the offensive end, committed too many unforced errors and did not rebound well allowing Spring Valley to win the contest 48-47.

Boyceville trailed 28-25 at half but took a lead midway through the second half.

But the Bulldogs were unable to hold it as Spring Valley came away with the home win.

Boyceville was a chilling 15 for 53 from the field including a numbing 2 of 19 from behind the three-point arc.

Madysn Riek led the Bulldogs with 18 points but only five of them came in the second half. Marki Lagerstrom was the only other Boyceville player in double digits as she finished with a dozen. Cassie Malean and Morgan Kuhn tallied seven and six respectively.

Riek also led with seven rebounds and Emma Harnisch had six.

Becky Fesenmaier had 18 points to pace the Cardinals in the win. Christa Brorson had 11 while Katy Schreiber and Jacqueline Dieckman each finished with seven points.