Boyceville girls clobber Cadott again; exit regional with loss to Osseo-Fairchild

By Cara L. Dempski

If every journey starts with a single step, then the Boyceville girls’ basketball squad started its journey to the 2017 state basketball tournament with a big one.

The Bulldogs, the fifth seed in the lower half bracket of the WIAA Division 4 Chippewa Falls’ Sectional, hosted their round-one regional contest against Cadott Tuesday, February 21 and cruised to an easy 72-40 victory a little more than one week after beating the Hornets 70-19 in a regular-season, non-conference battle at the Dog House February 13.

The win earned Boyceville a Saturday afternoon road trip to Osseo where the Dogs took on the region’s number-four seed, the Osseo-Fairchild Thunder. The Lady Bulldogs trailed the Osseo-Fairchild squad by only two points at the end of the first half, and built a nice lead in the second, but it slipped away in the final few minutes of the game and they ended up on the short end of a 47-41 final score.

The game against O-F had been scheduled for Friday night but a winter storm postponed the showdown until Saturday.

With the loss, the Bulldogs’ 2016-17 season came to an end and as did the prep basketball careers of seniors Brooklyn Booth, Cassie Malean, Morgan Kuhn, Madysn Riek, Emma Harnisch and Brooklyn Hellmann. Head Coach Jolene Bird said she will miss the girls as positive role models and leaders on and off the court.

Boyceville, who finished fourth in this year’s Dunn-St. Croix standings with an 8-6 mark, ended the season at 14-9 after going 1-1 in this year’s tournament.

Cadott

Boyceville coach Jolene Bird was happy to get a game under her team’s belt. It likely helped that the Bulldogs’ first game was against a team it already knew it could beat. 

The Boyceville squad took on Cadott’s Hornets for a second time in a eight-day span when they hosted the regional opener February 21. The Bulldogs came out on top, winning the rubber match 72-40. Bird credited some strong shooting from her team with the win.

“We hope that we can continue to shoot well through the tournament. It definitely opens things up for a us a little bit,” Bird explained. 

The Lady Bulldogs hit 15 inside shots and a whopping 11 three-point shots, but continued to show signs of struggle at the free throw line, making only nine of 16 attempts. In contrast, Cadott hit only four three-pointers and nine field goals; they were 10 for 15 from the line.

Boyceville raced out of the gate, picking up seven unopposed points in the first three minutes of the game before Cadott’s Mary Jo Prokupek put the Hornets on the board with a single charity throw at 15:05. The Bulldogs then went on a nine-point run before Hornet freshman Abby Eiler hit a shot for two, making the score 16-3 at the 12:00 mark.

The Hornets started to find their stride as the clock ticked down past 10:00, scoring twice in two minutes to make the score 20-7, when Kaitlyn Tice committed a foul against Boyceville senior Madysn Riek as she went up for a shot.

Riek’s shot dropped, giving the Bulldogs two points as she stepped up to the free throw line. The Boyceville player was just about to send up her shot when the referees blew the whistle on Hornet head coach Dave Hazuga; he was awarded a technical for continuing to argue against the foul and warned further repercussions would be forthcoming if he continued to make his argument.

With both teams standing beyond center court, Riek sent in one of her two shot attempts to make the score 23-7. The Bulldogs were awarded the ball after the shots, but it was intercepted by Tice on the inbound pass, and she took it to the other end of the court for a baseline three to make the score 23-10.

From the nine-minute mark onward in the opening half, the Bulldogs seemed to have one or two answers to each score from the Hornets, and the horn sounded on a 40-15 score as both teams broke for the half.

Cadott hit the court with some fire to open the second half when Kallie Patrie nailed a three-point shot and Prokupek dropped in an inside try to make the score 40-20 before two minutes were off the clock. The Bulldogs responded in kind with three successive scoring possessions to lead 46-20 with 14 minutes still to play.

While the Hornets were able to score more consistently in the second half, they could never drum up enough energy to catch the Bulldogs. Their fate was sealed when Boyceville freshman Hannah Johnson swiped away an inbounds pass to give the Bulldogs possession with only 3.6 seconds on the clock.

Riek continued her high-scoring year, picking up the game’s biggest individual score of 18 points. Her classmate, Brooklyn Hellmann, earned 14 points against the Hornets. Rachel Prestrud scored nine, Emma Harnisch contributed eight, Cassie Malean and Morgan Kuhn tied with seven each, Brooklyn Booth scored six, and Hannah Johnson hit a lone outside shot for three.

The high-scoring player for Cadott was Prokupek, who picked up 13 points in her final game this season.

CADOTT 40, BOYCEVILLE 72
Cadott……………………………..15  25 — 40
Boyceville…………………………40  32 — 72

TEAM STATISTICS (FG-FT-F-T)

Cadott (9-10-11-40) J. Sedlacek 0-0-2-0, M. Prokupek 5-3-3-13, K. Tice 1-0-3-5, K. Patrie 0-0-0-9, A. Siler 1-0-1-2, J. Sonnentag 0-2-0-2, M. Fasbender 1-1-0-3, A. Dembowski 0-4-1-4, K. Foehls 1-0-1-2.

Boyceville (15-9-13-72)  C. Malean 2-0-2-7, M. Kuhn 1-2-2-7, M. Riek 8-2-3-18, E. Harnisch 2-4-0-8, B. Hellmann 2-1-1-14, R. Prestrud 0-0-2-9, B. Booth 0-0-1-6, A. Bloom 0-0-1-0, T. Kostman 0-0-1-0, H. Johnson 0-0-0-3.

THREE-POINTERS C — K. Tice 1, K. Patrie 3; B — R. Prestrud 3, B. Booth 2, C. Malean 1, M. Kuhn 1, H. Johnson 1, B. Hellmann 3.

Osseo-Fairchild

Head coach Jolene Bird said going into the game against the Thunder, they new the Osseo-Fairchild team was a tough one.

“I think Osseo’s got a really solid team,” Bird said after the Bulldogs’ win over Cadott. “I think it’ll be a really great match-up.”

The Lady Bulldogs trailed the Thunder by two points at halftime of the February 25 contest, but built a nine-point lead in the first 10 minutes of the second half. The Boyceville squad gave up only 22 points during the first 28 minutes of play, but then seemed to falter.

Things still would not have been so bad, but the Thunder went on a 23-point scoring jag in the final eight minutes of the game to cop the 47-41 win and earn a crack at Durand, the number one seed in the lower half bracket of the Altoona sectional. The Panthers and Thunder played in a regional final Monday night in Durand.

“It was a tough loss for our team,” Bird said. “It is very  hard to have this season end with this group of six seniors.”

One of those seniors, Madysn Riek, earned 18 points to lead her team, and the game, in scoring. Brooklyn Hellmann contributed eight points with a field goal and a pair of threes, and Morgan Kuhn added a three-point shot to her four free throws to score seven.

Cassie Malean contributed four points, and Emma Harnisch and Rachel Prestrud chalked up two points apiece.

Thunder players Meg Steinke and Sophiah Filla logged 15 points each to lead the Osseo-Fairchild effort.

BOYCEVILLE 41, OSSEO-FAIRCHILD 47
Boyceville…………………………18  23 — 41
Osseo-Fairchild…………………20  27 — 47

TEAM STATISTICS (FG-FT-F-T)

Boyceville (10-12-16-41) R. Prestrud 1-0-1-2, B. Booth 0-0-2-0, C. Malean 1-2-1-4, M. Kuhn 0-4-4-7, M. Riek 6-6-2-18, E. Harnisch 1-0-3-2, B. Hellmann 1-0-3-8.

Osseo-Fairchild (12-11-18-47) G. Eide 1-0-1-2, B. Freitag 1-1-3-6, S. Filla 5-2-2-15, S. Solie 2-1-2-5, A. Kubishek 1-1-3-3, Me. Steinke 2-5-4-15, Ma. Steinke 0-1-0-1, R. Walker 0-0-2-0.

THREE-POINTERS B — M. Kuhn 1, B. Hellmann 2; OF — B. Freitag 1, S. Filla 1, M. Steinke 2.