Better showing against Loggers a week later; Redmen hang with Auburndale

RIB LAKE GIRLS BASKETBALL

A win was going to be unlikely, but improvement was possible and certainly achieved in Rib Lake’s 72-43 loss at Phillips Monday.

The Redmen and Marawood Northleading Loggers met one week earlier and Phillips put that one away quickly in a 67-24 blowout.

This time, Rib Lake head coach Wayne Mann felt better about his team’s effort against the Loggers, who are 10-0 in Marawood play.

“Offensively we did some good things against their half-court defense, which didn’t bother us as much as the game on the 17th,” Mann said. “We almost doubled our point total from a week ago and our turnovers were down.”

Unfortunately, the Redmen again had no answers for Jada Eggebrecht, the Loggers’ senior star who went off for 23 points, including 13 in the first half. From there, the Loggers were quite balanced with 11 more players finding the scoring column. While the Loggers connected on eight 3-pointers, most of their damage came in transition, whether it was off a Rib Lake turnover or simply getting the ball up the floor quickly after a rebound.

“Defensively we just got beat down the court,” Mann said.

An Addison Gumz basket pulled Rib Lake within 14-6 in the early going when the Loggers went on a decisive 35-16 tear to lead 49-22 at the break.

Eggebrecht had 10 of the first 12 points in that surge and then assisted on a Mataya Eckert layup. Annala swished a 3-pointer to make it 30-13, but Eckert and Allie Adomaitis buried back-to-back 3s to extend the Loggers’ lead to 36-13. Kacy Eggebrecht hit a triple and Brooke Eckert converted a three-point play to offset a Danielle Mann 3 and buckets by Rebekah Strobach, Mann and Kamy Annala. Jada Eggebrecht scored at the buzzer off a baseline inbound play to give the Loggers their largest first-half lead at 27.

The Loggers led by as many as 33 in the second half, but Rib Lake executed some nice offensive set. Molly Heiser had a couple of assists from the post and scored off a good spin move, Emily Rodman scored all five of her points in the half, including a 3-pointer and Tia Bube scored her four points after halftime too.

Mann led Rib Lake with 15 points, making six of nine two-point shots. She had two rebounds and two steals. Annala finished with nine points, six rebounds, five steals and four assists in a solid all-around outing. She made four of seven shots overall. Heiser had three points, three assists and two rebounds. Strobach, Lauren Pelnis and Gumz finished with two points apiece and Josie Scheithauer had one.

Strobach had four rebounds, while Gumz and Scheithauer had three. Scheithauer had three assists. Pelnis had two steals.

Rib Lake (3-7, 4-11) gets another tough Marawood North test tonight, Thursday, when it hosts second-place Athens at 7:15 p.m. The Blue Jays improved to 8-2, 14-2 on Monday by beating Marathon 38-37 on a 3-pointer by Addison Lavicka at the buzzer.

The Redmen will host Owen-Withee in non-conference play Monday before heading to Newman Catholic on Feb. 3.

Eagles 57, Redmen 46

Again on Friday it wasn’t a win, but Rib Lake had plenty of positives to pull away from a 57-46 loss to Marawood South contender Auburndale.

The Eagles improved to 13-3 at the time but they had to earn it. Auburndale created some first-half distance by taking a 23-14 halftime lead, but Rib Lake hung with the Eagles nearly point for point in the second half.

“Offensively I felt we ran our halfcourt offense patiently,” Wayne Mann said. “We’ll keep working toward reducing our turnovers to get them to a number that works. Defensively we held Auburndale to just one shot. I felt we rebounded well.” Danielle Mann just missed a doubledouble for Rib Lake with 17 points and nine rebounds. She added three steals and made seven of 16 shots from the field, including three of eight 3-pointers. Scheithauer knocked down a couple of 3s, made all four of her free throws and had five assists and four rebounds in a 10-point outing.

Pelnis also came close to a doubledouble with 10 points, eight rebounds, five assists and two steals. Annala had six points, five rebounds and two assists. Heiser had three points and four rebounds and Rodman grabbed a couple of rebounds. Both teams had 32 rebounds.

Auburndale got 13 points from Annamarie Aue and eight points apiece from Delaney Becker, Ashlyn Grimm and Lilly Hassenohrl.