Lady Vikings struggle early but win big over Cardinals

By Cara L. Dempski

SPRING VALLEY — It seems to be a fact of life that you have to take the bad with the good.

So, while Joe Doucette’s Colfax ladies won a decisive 75-42 victory on the road at Spring Valley last Tuesday, January 23, the coach also thought his team could have performed better than it did.

“We just looked slow and not into it early,” he said the following day. “We played well in stretches. We had a nice stretch late in the first half as Josie Steinke had a great stretch, hitting three threes and a two, scoring 14 points in about six minutes.”

A look at the game statistics does not indicate a slow start for the Lady Vikings, who took a 21-point lead into the locker room at halftime, but the Cardinals doubled down on their first-half scoring to pick up 28 points in the final 18 minutes.

Doucette said the Colfax girls suffered through another slow stretch early in the second half, which freshman Marissa Harmon broke with a trio of three-point shots. Still, the Viking head coach said the Spring Valley girls bear watching, and seemed disappointed with Colfax’s lack of communication and hustle.

“We let them shoot 21 free throws in the second half, and had numerous careless fouls; we did not show a lot of basketball ‘IQ,’” he said later. “Spring Valley is well-coached and tries hard, but we have more fire power than they do.”

Still, Doucette said his team needs to learn to be physically and mentally prepared for each game, and must play the entire 36 minutes at a high level.

Sophomore Kameri Meredith led the Vikings with 15 points, but Steinke was right behind her with 14 of her own. Alyssa Dachel picked up 10 points for the visiting team, Harmon added nine, Savannah Henricks logged eight, Emma Hurlburt scored seven, and Addisyn Olson recorded six points.

Morgan Schleusner, Saville Wilson and Rachel Scharlau added the final six points to the score with two points apiece.

Spring Valley’s Lexi Johansen was the game’s high-scoring player after picking up 24 points.

Colfax, tied atop the Dunn-St. Croix with an 8-1 mark it shares with Durand, took a few days to refocus before it headed to Elk Mound last Friday, January 26 for the second of this season’s two rivalry games with the Mounders.

COLFAX 75, SPRING VALLEY 42
Colfax………………………………35  40 — 75
Spring Valley……………………..14  28 — 42

TEAM STATISTICS (FG-FT-F-T)

Colfax (25-16-16-75) — A. Dachel 4-0-1-10, M. Schleusner 2-0-3-2, K. Meredith 4-6-2-15, S. Henricks 3-1-3-8, J. Steinke 5-0-1-14, S. Wilson 0-2-0-2, M. Harmon 3-0-0-9, R. Scharlau 1-0-1-2, E. Hurlburt 2-3-2-7, Addy Olson 0-0-3-0, Addisyn Olson 1-4-0-6.

Spring Valley (13-14-17-42) — C. Wegener 1-1-2-3, T. Cipriano 1-1-3-3, E. Stans 0-0-4-0, B. O’Brien 1-2-2-4, B. Schreiber 1-0-1-2, L. Wittmer 1-2-3-4, L. Johansen 7-8-1-24, K. Dieckman 1-0-0-2, L. Stark 0-0-1-0.

THREE-POINTERS
C — A. Dachel 2, K. Meredith 1, S. Henricks 1, J. Steinke 4, M. Harmon 3; SV — L. Johansen 2.