Prep girls basketball teams vary in experience
There are two still-young teams, a veteran team and one in between in the Tri-County Area for prep girls basketball for the 2024-25 season.
The veteran team is Fall Creek, defending West Cloverbelt co-champs with Chippewa Falls McDonell, regional champs and serctional runner-ups with a 24-4 overall record. While FCHS won't have the services of Grace Marten due to a knee injury, the Crickets do return several letterwinners in Kennedy Tumm, Addy Haynes, Sophie Schmidgall, Jasmin Heuer, Becca Sturz and Ana Dougherty. Heuer was a first-team All-WCC selection and the returning leading scorer. Tumm was picked for the second team while Dougherty received honorable mention.
FC will have to replace graduates such as all-conference player Kambel Sell, Adiel Kaufman, Elena Raffensberger, Emalie Sorenson, Averie Barka and Caroline Grossinger.
Fall Creek has a nice balance of size in the frontcourt and quickness and shooting in the backcourt and that will give the Crickets the flexibility to play offense and defense a certain ways depending on the opponent and game situation according to head coach Jason Martzke.
"We can use our size to our advantage when we need to our we can play small to match our opponents quickness and speed if need be," Martzke said.
FC may well be lost in the shuffle in the drama between defending conference, regional and sectional champ Chippewa Falls McDonell and Eau Claire Regis (form er McDonell all-star sophomore Ela Mae Cooper along with her father, the Macks' former head coach, transferring to Regis to join with All-WCC player Carly Borst and their bigs Izzy Reichert and Malia Kassing along with senior guard to try and create a super-team but which McDonell beat them 42-39 in their first match-up on Tuesday). But with who they return, their talent and athleticism along with their tradition, the Crickets will certainly be in contention for the league, regional and sectional tournament titles once again. Fall Creek won their first league game Tuesday, walloping Thorp 78-16 and take on Colfax this Saturday at 5 p.m.
Both Eleva-Strum and Augusta return huge and foundational sophomore classes this season from teams which no doubt struggled last season being so young. E-S went 5-19 overall but return sophomores Avery Glenz, Maddea Brown, Avery Spanberg and Avaya Zweifelhofer, who together started many contests last season to go with juniors Aliza Kulig and Kora Gunderson and seniors Olivia Spanberg and Lizzie Nordstrom. Glenz was All-Dairyland Conference last season. Graduating from last season's team were Anabel Howie, Annika Skoug, Avarie Segerstrom and Kassidy Koxlien.
The Cardinals have already flashed their potential so far this season, losing close contests to Cadott and defending DC Large champ Whitehall on a last-second shot in overtime while walloping DC Small champ Cochrane-Fountain City for their first win under new head coach Dave Hazuga.
"“This is a team with a lot of potential, and young players," Hazuga said. "Our expectations this season is to compete hard and see what we can become. We have a determined group of players."
Augusta went 3-21 overall and o-fer in the Dairyland Conference. But that losing streak was broken in last week's win over Osseo-Fairchild 73-68.
"Just getting that first win and first league win is going to do a lot for our team's confidence," head coach Ashlyn Korger said. "We've grown a lot as a team in terms of skill and strength from last season where we played a lot of freshmen and took our lumps. The girls have developed their leadership and communication skills and basketball knowledge. Now it's a matter of learning how to win and doing the things we need to to win ballgames when they're close like this one was."
Back for the Beavers from last season are sophomores Cecelia Schoreder, Degan Gunter, Brooklyn Krueger, Stella Zank, Stephanie Bergman and Camern Heinxz-Torgeson. AHS also returns seniors Kaydn Kirkham and Aubrey Korger and juniors Deja Elliott and Elenaor Halverson. Schroeder, Zank and Krueger combined for 63 of ther Beavers' 73 points as they improve to 1-2 overall. Freshman Laney O'Brien will make an impact this season and Augusta lost just two seniors in Olivia Meyer and Nevaeh Bergman to graduation.
Osseo-Fairchild has played its first Dairyland Conference contests since 1986 and while the Thunder start the season 0-2 in the league the poential is there for a team that can be competitive with four returning letterwinners in seniors Hailie Knudtson, Page Gleiter, Addie Helland, Liz Jacobson and Bryssa Johnson, juniors Makaela Kiesow and Myrisa Pettis along with senior Kara Skoyen, who did not play a season ago due to injury, from a squad which finished 8-6 in the hypercompetitive Western Cloverbelt Conference last season and 14-12 overall, plus a bevy young talent and players with not a lot of varsity experience moving up from the JV squad. O-F graduated Tymeka Eisenberner, Addisyn Koxlien, Chloe Gunderson, Hanna Giacomino, Halle Colby, Taryen Kittelson and Devyn Vojtik.
"Our experience varies and we have a lot of inexperience," new head coach Ben Mueller said. "We have some players who got playing time on varsity last season, some who were on varsity but didn't get a lot of playing time, some coming up from the JV squad and some freshmen as well who will contribute to our team this season."
So far Knudtson leads the team in scoring at 26 ppg. and is a player Mueller believes the team can build around.
"We needed her scoring to stay in the ballgame," Mueller said. "But as our help defense got better in the second half and we were more aggressive to force turnovers and tough shots, our confidence grew and other players stepped up for us like Kiearra Sieg (a freshman starter who finished with 15 points) and Paige Gleiter (a senior who had 11). We have to keep building on this throughout the whole season.
O-F returns to the Dairyland with teams now playing a full 20-game schedule with the same Large and Small divisions. All three Tri-County Area teams are in the same divisions along with Whitehall, Melrose-Mindoro and Independence/Gilmanton.
