Eleva-Strum keeps state tourney berth in sight
The one thing that makes the Eleva-Strum High School Girls Basketball Team both fun and easy to coach according to herman Dave Hazuga is that have a single purpose and goal.
"They just want to win, that's it," Hazuga said. "They want to get to the state tournament and winning gets them there. We can be up and down game-to-game, week-to-week, in how go about obtaining that goal and trying to do better but it's towards the same goal."
The pain of the 60-39 loss to Barneveld in last year's WIAA Division 5 sectional tournament finals has gone a long way into creating this mindset among this season's Cardinal squad and finally purging that loss and making it to state for the first time since 2008 for the school sets the tone for this year's Sectional 1 Tournament being played Thursday and Saturday, March 5 and 7.
Eleva-Strum comes into the tournament a No. 1 seed and the top ranked team in the state, undefeated at 27-0. They will face No. 3 seed Owen-Withee (20-7 overall) Thursday, March 5 at Altoona. O-W knocked off No. 6 ranked New Auburn (25-2) 31-27 to win its regional title while a strong second half performance at home Helped E-S defeat Gilman (15-12) in its regional tourney final 67-49. The other semifinal pits No. 3 ranked and fellow No. 1 seed Webster (26-0) against No. 2 seed Solon Springs (23-3) in Amery. Webster, winners of the Lakeland West Conference, smothered South Shore (18-8) by a 51-27 margin to win its regional while Solon Springs, winners of the Northern Lights Conference, dispatched Turtle Lake (13-14) 61-49 in its regional final.
O-W had been in and out of the rankings the whole season but that's the product of playing a tough league which the Eastern Cloverbelt Conference was this season with ranked teams like D-4 No. 1 Neillsville and D-5 No. 8 Marshfield Columbus along with teams like Gilman or Loyal for example which had solid teams and solid records.
The Blackhawks are also the defending sectional champs (E-S played in the SW quadrant sectional last season) and were 25-5 a year ago. O-W only lost four seniors from that squad, although they were their top scorers and rebounders. They have just one scorer averaging in double figures in senior, 5-6 guard Madi Mueller averaging over 11 points per game (ppg.) but have four other players averaging between six to eight ppg. Senior 5-8 forward Carmen Frese leads the 'Hawks in rebounding with nearly eight rebounds per contest to go with eight points per game and Mueller also averages three assists per contest.
As for the Cardinals, they enter into this sectional tournament a better team than the squad which came out of nowhere from 5-19 in 2024 to 22-7 in 2025 and now 27-0 in 2026. Junior 5-8 guard Avery Glenz is the team leader in scoring at 18 per contest while fellow junior 5-8 guard Maddea Brown is at 12 ppg. and junior 5-10 forward Avaya Zwiefelhofer at nearly 10 ppg. Glenz also leads the team in rebounds with 7.5 rpg. and assists with three. The Cards not only have the strong will to win, as many teams do, but have the talent, size and length to go with it
WIAA Division 5 Girls Basketball Tournament Bracket: https://tournaments.wiaawi.org/brackets/Basketball/Girls/2026/2026_Baske...
Webster has been near the top of the D-5 rankings along with Eleva-Strum for the better part of the second half of the season. The Tigers were not only unbeaten in conference play but also downed bigger schools and solid teams like Cadott, Somerset, Spooner and Cumberland. Top scorers for Webster include junior 5-7 guard Avery Hetfeld at 13 ppg., and senior 5-6 forward Brooke Wolf at 11 ppg. Guards senior Elle Treague and junior Reese Grindell both average eight points per game. Hetfeld leads the team in rebounding with seven per contest and Grindell averages over two and a half assists.
Freshman Kalli Nelson not only leads Solon Springs in assists at eight per game she also leads the entire state of Wisconsin in prep girls basketball in that category as well. One of the best young players in the state is also a team leader for the Eagles in scoring at 19.3 ppg. for the 5-5 guard. SS's three losses were to Webster in the first game of the season (50-38 for the Tigers) along with Shell Lake and Ewen-Trout Lake, Mich. Their other top scorer is sophomore 5-8 forward Clare Beemsten at nearly 17 ppg. She leads the team in rebounds as well. The Eagles are also a very young squad with five freshman on the varsity line-up, four sophomores and only one junior.
The Sectional 1 championship game will be played Saturday, March 7 in Somerset with the opening tip at 1 p.m. The state tournament, the 50th anniversary of the state tournament for girls basketball in Wisconsin, is next weekend in Green Bay at the Resch Center with the D-5 state semifinals on Friday, March 13 at 9:05 a.m.
