Colby rebounds after heartbreak at home
The Colby Hornets dropped their first conference match of the year Friday night against the Loyal Greyhounds at home, 57-52. Colby put the loss behind them, using a clutch performance from the charity stripe to top Stratford 46-39 on the road Monday, improving to 5-2.
57-52
It’s been over two years since the Colby Hornets lost a conference game, an almost unbelievable streak of 35 consecutive Eastern Cloverbelt victories that includes the first two conference titles in program history.
It looked for all the world on Friday as if the Colby girls would extend that winning streak to 36 as they led by as much as 15 in their conference tilt against the Loyal Greyhounds.
But fouls, turnovers and cold shooting gave the Greyhounds all the ammunition they needed to become the first team to hand the Hornets a conference loss since November 17 of 2017.
“I definitely think they had a very good run in the beginning, and I don’t think we were quite ready for that,” senior Hailey Voelker said, expressing her take on Friday’s loss.
With Loyal’s Remy Geiger, scoring a game high 19 points, the Greyhounds charged out to an early lead.
The Hornets tied things up at 8-8 with 10:49 to play, and then went inside, using their speed to get points in the paint. Colby slowly built up their lead to ten at 22-12 with 6:15 left in the first frame.
The play of the game came off a Lexi Krebsbach crossover that left her defender sprawled on the floor. Krebsbach then found an open Emma Peavey, who calmly drained a three to put the Hornets up 3217 with 2:37 to play.
But the Hornets would make just one more three the entire game, and in a sign of things to come, Loyal ended the first half on a 6-0 run to pull within 32-23 at the break.
Loyal continued to apply the pressure with the Greyhounds opening up the final frame on a 9-0 run that made it 32-32.
Colby rediscovered its offense midway through the second half, and keyed by three big baskets from Krebsbach, took a 50-41 lead with 6:17 left to play.
But from there fouls and turnovers took their toll. First Hailey Voelker fouled out, and this was followed by Peavey, and then Krebsbach and eventually Lexi Underwood, leaving Colby with just one remaining starter on the floor.
Loyal made the most of these fouls, converting 24 of 32 free throw attempts as they escaped with a 57-52 win, though the Hornets remains atop the Eastern Cloverbelt with a 4-1 record.
Peavey led Colby with 17 point and Underwood had 13 and Voelker finished with 12. Krebsbach had seven points and Olivia Vollrath added three points.
If there is one silver lining to the game, Voelker says, it’s that it gets next year’s players used to being on court without their senior leaders.
“ I would have liked the win, but I think a game like this helps us out in the long run. Me, Lexi [Krebsbach] and Kersten are obviously not going to be here next year,” Voelker said. “So other girls need to get some minutes and get some experience coming off the bench.”
Stratford, 46-39
The Hornets got some wind in their sails just before the holidays with a nailbiting victory over the Stratford Tigers on Monday in a meeting between Cloverbelt and Marawood teams.
The Hornets had to battle for every point as the Tigers employed a zone defense that took advantage of having three players that stand 6’0” or taller.
The game was made even closer with cold shooting as neither team was able to beg, buy or steal a basket.
By the end of the first half Colby held a slim 16-14 lead at halftime. The second half saw Colby become the aggressor, and draw contact to finish at the line to get the win.
“We talked about it at practice as far as certain things that we got to get better at,” Colby head coach Randy Rau said. “One is taking care of the basketball, and two was making the free throws.”
After making barely 50 percent of their free throws against Loyal, Colby cashed in on numerous trips to the charity stripe, finishing 21 of 28.
“The great thing is, when you stress something, and it shows proof the fol-
COLBY GB lowing day, they comprehend things and at the end of the game, Stratford was the team in foul trouble, and we were the team that wasn’t in foul trouble.”
Colby needed every point as the Tigers took a 28-24 lead with 11 minutes left in regulation after Stratford’s Emily Hughes scored several times in the post.
Hughes was the Tigers leading scorer with 11, but Colby’s defense did not allow another Tiger to score more than nine points.
Kersten Wiese pumped in several timely shots that allowed Colby to regain the lead at 32-31. The game was soon knotted up at 35-35 with just under four minutes left.
On a night when Colby was a frigid three of 16 from beyond the arc, Emma Peavey and Olivia Vollrath hit the two biggest shots of the game, a pair of corner threes that gave Colby the momentum and the lead.
“It’s huge whenever you got someone who can step up and hit threes,” Rau said. “Olive . . . she can shoot the threes, she just hasn’t had a ton of opportunities. She goes “I’m good. I can do it.” She had an opportunity, she stepped up and hit it.”
Vollrath finished with nine points, as did Hailey Voelker, while Emma Peavey scored a game high 14 points. Wiese and Lexi Krebsbach each chipped in with four apiece.
The win was the perfect cure for Colby’s hangover from Loyal, and Rau hopes that the Hornets can use it for their match-up against perennial Eastern Cloverbelt powerhouse Neillsville on Thursday, Dec. 19.
“I think it’s a huge win for us because the last thing we want to do is have two losses in a row going into Neillsville,” Rau said. “We know we’re a better team than what we showed the other night. Tonight justified that and it gets us in a positive mood to come into Thursday.”
