Edgar tries to replace top scorer
Edgar varsity girls basketball head coach Tom McCarty might’ve only lost one starting player from last year’s team to graduation, but it was the school’s all-time leading scorer in Makenna Guden. It could be many years before Edgar has a player of Guden’s caliber on the basketball court.
Guden was a first team all-state player during her senior season, in which she averaged 19.7 points per game. She was the Marawood South Conference Player of the Year.
Last season, Guden broke both Holly (Denfeld) Nowak’s Edgar girls career scoring mark and Larry Brown’s alltime school scoring record that stood for 40 years. She concluded her Edgar High School playing career with 1,521 points and she’s now playing college basketball at UW-Superior.
“Replacing Makenna is a tall task; we will have to realize that we cannot really replace her but instead morph into our team with a new identity,” McCarty said. “That includes more balanced scoring and others stepping up to become confident scorers and threats.”
Edgar beat Marathon in the WIAA Division 4 regional championship last season before losing to Fall Creek in the sectional semifinals. The Wildcats had an 8-6 record in the Marawood South Conference were 13-10 overall last year.
The following are Edgar’s top returning players this season: senior guards Skylee Manecke, Malia Hoesly and Karlin Lipinski; junior guards Morgan Schnelle, Olystra Baumann and Leah Davis; junior forwards Reagan Borchardt and Amber Skrzypcak and sophomore forward Makayla Wirkus. Sophomore guard Taylor Lemmer is the team’s top newcomer to the varsity squad this season.
Edgar started this season with a healthy Skylee Manecke, who missed the first half of last season with a shoulder injury.
Coach McCarty likes his squad’s chances at possibly being at the top of the Marawood South Conference when the regular season ends.
“I think this team is good enough to compete with the top teams in the South as well as in the state,” McCarty said. “We return nine letter winners, all of whom played a ton of minutes last year. We are very good defensively and I know we will improve offensively. I think this will be a very dangerous team with the amount of experience we return. There are a lot of really good teams in the South with a lot of good players; I’m not sure I could single out a favorite but I know every night is going to be an absolute battle.”
McCarty’s assistant coaches this season are Holly and Nicole Nowak, Betty Urmanski and the late Gary Brewster in spirit.
