Mounders girls finish holiday break with loss to Osseo-Fairchild Thunder
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by Marlys Kruger
Sports Correspondent
ELK MOUND — The Elk Mound girls played a non-conference game over the holiday break when they hosted the Osseo-Fairchild Thunder December 28. A second game scheduled against Bloomer two days later was canceled due to Covid issues with Bloomer.
The Thunder were ranked number 5 in Division 4 this year according to the Wisconsin Basketball Coaches Association and were 8-0 overall and 4-0 in the Western Cloverbelt Conference when they entered the Elk Mound gym. After holding leads in both the first and second half, the Mounders couldn’t hold on as they suffered their first loss of the season, 60-59.
The Thunder started the game with a pair of buckets before the Mounders used a steal and fast break layup by Stella Rhude along with a triple from Ellie Schiszik to take a 5-4 lead. Using an aggressive full court trapping defense, Elk Mound forced back to back turnovers on O-F and they capitalized on them by hitting two treys, one each from Lydia Levra and Brook Emery for a 16-9 advantage. Rhude and Tori Blaskowski both knocked down two free throws for a 20-11 lead, but their defense was a little too aggressive as Rhude was called for her third foul, the seventh on the Mounders with 6:13 to go in the half.
Blaskowski scored on a drive through the lane, Schiszik drained another triple and Allie Roder who was in for Rhude, swiped the ball and scored and the Mounders seemed in control of things with a 27-15 lead.
But, there are a few reasons the Thunder are state ranked, and one of them is their own trapping defense. They forced three Mounder turnovers and used their shooting skills to go on a nine point run, with the final three coming from a trey by Taylor Gunderson and the halftime lead was just 27-24 for Elk Mound.
The Mounders stormed out of the lockerroom however, led by Rhude who scored five straight points on a free toss and two shots in the paint, then drew a charging call against the Thunder. Madisyn Mohr tacked on a bucket, followed by one from Blaskowski, and after Mohr canned a pair of free throws, once again the Mounders were in command 41-28. But, Rhude was called for her fourth foul and took a spot on the bench with 11 minutes left in the game.
Emery drained a triple to put her team up 44-2, turnovers again hurt the Mounders and the Thunder used them to score six consecutive points. After a Mohr layup, O-F had another run, this time for eight points which included a couple of shots from behind the arc to cut the Mounders lead to 46-45.
Rhude was back in the game and dropped in two foul shots but the Thunder knotted the score at 50-50, then went ahead 52-50. Rhude then fouled out with 3:22 to go, and a few seconds later Emery calmly canned a couple of free throws for another tie score. But, Gunderson put the Thunder back up with a close range shot, and Roder countered that with her own bucket on a fast break and it was 54-54 with 1:36 left in the contest. After another Thunder deuce, Roder came through again with a shot from underneath and it was 56-56.
Gunderson had been a thorn in the Mounders’ side all night and continued to be as she drained a triple, but Mohr hit her own trey and it was 59-59 with 30 seconds to go. Then Gunderson was fouled on a three point attempt, sending her to the foul line for three shots with 2.5 ticks on the clock. She hit one of them, and after a time out, Elk Mound missed on a final shot with just 1.6 seconds to go, resulting in the one point loss.
“It was a good high school basketball game,” Mounder coach Jordan Kongshaug said. “We gave a great effort and we had opportunities, but we came up a bit short. We will learn a lot from this game that will help us keep going forward,” he added.
The Mounders shot 12 of 20 from the foul line and knocked down seven triples for the contest. The Thunder made 7 of 12 free throws and five treys. Rhude, despite sitting on the bench for some of the game led the Mounders with 13 points, while Blaskowski scored 12 and Mohr 11. Gunderson finished with 18 points for the Thunder.
The Mounder girls, who headed into the new year with an 8-1 record, hosted Ellsworth January 3 then played at Somerset a day later before returning to conference play at home against Boyceville January 6.