This story is sponsored by Forward Bank
By Paul Lecker
MarshfieldAreaSports.com
MARSHFIELD – A gritty second-half performance by the Marshfield girls basketball team kept its season alive for another day.
Trailing by 13 points at halftime, Marshfield rallied to tie the game on four different occasions, before one play put the Tigers over the edge.
As Holmen was working for a last shot in the final seconds, Devyn LeMoine gathered a loose ball, drove to the basket and scored with 10 seconds left to give No. 8 seed Marshfield the lead and it held on for a 67-65 win over the ninth-seeded Vikings in a WIAA Division 1 regional semifinal Friday night at Marshfield High School.
Marshfield (14-11) moves on to a Division 1 regional final at No. 1 seed Eau Claire Memorial (23-2) on Saturday at 7 p.m.
Zaida Kolbeck scored 12 of her game-high 22 points in the final eight minutes to help the Tigers pull out the victory.
“We went in halftime down 13 and we kind of looked at each other and there’s two ways to get back into this, A, we have to play harder and B, we have to play smarter,” Marshfield coach Heidi Michaelis said. “I said our goal is to get three stops in a row and we were able to do that.
“Zaida has put in so much time and she didn’t want this to be her last game. The shots she took were good, she went hard to the hoop and she gave us opportunities for us to get back in the game because she was very aggressive with the ball.”
The early part of the game was tight as Marshfield led 14-12 after a steal and layup by Kolbeck.
Holmen responded with a 7-0 run to go ahead. Following a 3-pointer from Hailey Klumb for the Tigers, Holmen scored the final nine points of the first half and took a 36-23 lead into intermission.
Marshfield regrouped and came out of the locker room firing, scoring six quick points to get back in the game.
A barrage of 3-pointers by Holmen helped them build the lead back nine before the Tigers used a 10-2 spurt to tie it up.
A steal and layup by McKenzie Holm ended a 6-0 run, and after a basket by Macy Kline for the Vikings, Kolbeck scored on back-to-back possessions to knot the score at 52-52 with 7:38 to go.
Holmen pulled ahead on three different occasions only to see Marshfield fight back to tie it each time.
A basket by Kolbeck and a inside hoop by Klumb off a nifty pass from Holm with 1:54 left tied the score at 64-63.
Aspyn Archer scored with 54 seconds to go to put Holmen back on top only to see Kolbeck score again on a drive inside.
As Holmen dribbled near the mid-court line working for a final shot, the ball handler lost control, LeMoine scooped it up and drove to the basket. She knocked in the layup as she was fouled to give the Tigers a 67-65 lead.
LeMoine missed the free throw and Holmen rebounded, working the ball to Danika Rebhahn, who had made six 3-pointers in the game. But with a chance to win it, her shot from the right wing barely missed, setting off a celebration by the Tigers, who went 19-for-30 shooting in a 44-point second half.
“I’m super proud of the kids because they had to dig in in a really bad situation,” Michaelis said. “Eau Claire Memorial is a really, really good club. When we played them (a 57-38 loss on Jan. 7), we said it was probably the best team we played all year. They have all the parts and play extremely hard. We have nothing to lose, the pressure is on them as a No. 1 seed, and as that game went on I thought we learned how to play at that speed and we got more and more comfortable.”
Klumb had a big double-double for the Tigers, scoring 16 points while pulling down 11 rebounds, and Emma Ridgway added 10 points in the win.
Tigers 67, Vikings 65
Holmen 36 29 – 65
Marshfield 23 44 – 67
HOLMEN (65): Macy Kline 7-12 3-8 18, Reese Tierney 1-1 2-2 4, Layni Wood 1-2 0-0 2, Aspyn Archer 4-11 0-0 8, Makenzie Nunemacher 0-3 6-8 6, Imani Toso 3-7 0-0 9, Danika Rebhahn 6-13 0-0 18. FG: 22-49. FT: 11-18. 3-pointers: 10-26 (Rebhahn 6-13, Toso 3-6, Kline 1-3, Nunemacher 0-1, Archer 0-3). Rebounds: 33 (Kline 9). Turnovers: 14. Fouls: 13. Fouled out: none. Record: 12-12.
MARSHFIELD (67): McKenzie Holm 2-7 0-0 4, Zaida Kolbeck 9-19 4-6 22, Devyn LeMoine 2-3 0-1 4, Hailey Klumb 6-9 1-2 16, Lauryn Katzenberger 3-6 1-2 7, Kylie Laufenberg 2-4 0-0 4, Emma Ridgway 4-9 0-0 10. FG: 28-57. FT: 6-11. 3-pointers: 5-20 (Klumb 3-4, Ridgway 2-5, Laufenberg 0-1, Katzenberger 0-2, Holm 0-3, Kolbeck 0-5). Rebounds: 27 (Klumb 11). Turnovers: 10. Fouls: 15. Fouled out: none. Record: 14-11.