Colfax girls’ basketball earns clean sweep, opens 2024 with trio of wins
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by Marlys Kruger
Sports Correspondent
It was a very productive week for the Colfax girls’ basketball team as they won all three of their games. All of the games were on the road, starting with a non-conference game January 2 at St. Croix Central as the Lady Vikings won 60-32. Two days later they returned to Dunn-St. Croix Conference play when they traveled to Plum City and wailed on the Elmwood-Plum City Wolves 81-24. They finished off the week with a Saturday afternoon game at Blair-Taylor and came home with a 66-36 win over the Wildcats.
St. Croix Central
Playing out of the Middle Border Conference, the Division 3 Panthers were 6-6 overall and 1-3 in conference play. Colfax outscored the Panthers by eight points in the first half with McKenna Shipman scoring 12 of the Vikings 23 points as they led 23-15 at the break. Shipman scored from all over as she connected on a trio of shots from close range, made 3-of-3 free throws and drained a triple. Jeanette Hydukovich added seven points for the Vikings on three buckets and a free toss and Kaysen Goodell was the only other Viking to score with one shot from the paint.
Colfax picked up the pace offensively in the second half as McKenna Shipman finished her night with four more deuces for a 20-point performance while Hydukovich tacked on two more shots to finish with 11 points. Five different Vikings put points on the scoreboard with Autumn Niggemann and Jordyn Bowe both scoring seven points, Jada Anderson tacked on six, Meadow Keltner added five while Brynn Sikora added two. The Vikings drained four treys in the game, one each from Shipman, Bowe, Keltner and Niggemann and they were 9-for-13 at the charity stripe.
Jada Anderson and Shipman both snared seven rebounds and Sikora grabbed five. Hydukovich blocked four Panther shots and collected three assists and a pair of steals, while Goodell picked up four assists and two steals.
Elsah Rubis led the Panthers with 16 points as her team canned three triples and were 7-of-8 at the foul line.
Elmwood-Plum City
The Wolves are struggling once again after having a couple of years where they were somewhat competitive. They were 0-9 overall and 0-4 in conference play when the Vikings entered their gym. Colfax jumped out to a 12-0 lead on buckets by Hydukovich, Shipman twice, Sikora, Shipman again and Sierra Shipman.
The Vikings were up 16-6 but their over aggressiveness could have caused some problems when they committed their seventh team foul with 9:51 left in the half. The Wolves hit a pair of free throws but Colfax had plenty of firepower as McKenna Shipman knocked down three shots in the paint and Goodell scored on an end-to-end layup. Jordyn Bowe had the hot hand for the next couple of minutes, scoring seven points on two shots in the lane and drilling a triple and it was 30-10 for Colfax.
The Vikings had been using a full-court press to force several turnovers by the Wolves but they pulled it off as their lead increased. Hydukovich hit a pair of deuces and Goodell canned a trey, and after Anderson scored on a put back, Sikora added a layup to send the Vikings into halftime with a convincing 41-19 advantage.
McKenna Shipman added to her point total with three buckets, two of them with an added free throw.
The Wolves dropped in a single free throw and little did anyone know, that would be the only point they would score until the final minute of the game.
Plenty of other Vikings got into the scoring action including Jaycey Bowe with a bucket and a free toss, Sierra Shipman dropped in a free throw and Keltner scored her first points of the game on a shot from behind the arc. With the score at 73-20 with around 7:00 on the clock, it went to running time and Colfax coach Courtney Sarauer made sure her junior varsity players saw some playing time. Leila Hurlburt scored five straight points with a close range shot and a three pointer and Jeni Maves scored her first varsity points by draining a long three-point shot to end the Colfax scoring.
McKenna Shipman ended her night with a 24-point performance while Goodell added 11 and Jordyn Bowe seven. Colfax made just 1-of-8 free throws in the first half but came back to finish 7-for-17 at the charity stripe. They canned six shots from beyond the arc for the night, coming from six different players. Allie Sauve led the Wolves with seven points and their leading scorer Hailey Webb, who had been averaging 12 points a game, was held to five points. E-PC made 7-of-14 free throws and one trey for the game.
Blair-Taylor
After seeing the final record of Blair-Taylor last year, this game appeared it should be highly competitive. B-T was 28-2 and ended their season as the Division 5 WIAA state runner-up, losing to power house McDonell Central. But nine players were lost from that team, including their top three scorers and this year’s team does not have any seniors and just a few juniors, making them a very young team. Their overall record was 3-9 and they were 2-2 in the Large Dairyland Conference.
McKenna Shipman scored the first seven points of the game for Colfax for a 7-1 lead and the points just kept coming. The Vikings held a lead of 11-1, and after a Wildcat bucket, Colfax used a 12-point run to pull ahead 23-3.The Vikings dominated the paint the last few minutes of the half as Sikora scored four points on a drive and a couple of free throws, McKenna Shipman scored on a put back and Hydukovich hit twice in the lane for a 34-11 advantage. A Colfax triple at the buzzer made it 37-13 in their favor at intermission time.
The Wildcats began to put some points on the board early in the second half, but McKenna Shipman took matters into her own hands, scoring eight straight points. Starting with a deuce in the paint, she drilled back to back three pointers from the top of the circle and it was 47-18 for the Vikings.
The Wildcats may have had some heavy legs at this point, coming off a close loss the night before to Houston (MN). Colfax kept putting up points with Jordyn Bowe scoring from close range twice with Sikora adding a deuce in between. McKenna Shipman added four more points in the last few minutes while Goodell scored twice in the lane and the game ended with the 30-point win as McKenna Shipman appropriately put in the final bucket coming off a long pass from Sikora.
Shipman finished with 24 points in the contest, Sikora added 12, Hydukovich eight and Jordyn Bowe and Goodell both tacked on seven points each.