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By Paul Lecker
MarshfieldAreaSports.com
View highlights of the Tigers’ win at allmarshfield.com
MARSHFIELD – Sometimes it’s cold shooting, sometimes it’s great defense. Friday night, it was a little bit of both as the Marshfield girls basketball team suffocated Stevens Point Area Senior High on its way to a 43-15 victory at the Marshfield High School Fieldhouse.
The Tigers won their ninth straight game and grabbed a stranglehold on the Wisconsin Valley Conference lead, improving to 8-0 (13-2 overall) and opening up a three-game lead on SPASH and Wisconsin Rapids, which lost to Wausau West on Friday, with four conference games to play.
“I’m thrilled with the way we played tonight,” Marshfield coach Heidi Michaelis said. “They didn’t shoot well, but we had a hand in that. We made them work hard. We kept the ball in front of us and were closing out on their shooters.”
Marshfield cruised out to a 9-2 lead in the first quarter behind 3-pointers from Taylor Varsho and Leah Ripp. SPASH made just one of nine shots in the first quarter and it didn’t get much better for the Panthers.
The Tigers opened up a double-digit lead in the second quarter as Ripp hit another 3-pointer and Seitz scored six points to push Marshfield’s lead to 24-8 at halftime.
Marshfield led by 20 after three quarters and held Stevens Point to 0-for-14 from the field in the fourth quarter to win by 28.
Defensively, the Tigers held SPASH to 5 of 47 shooting (10.7 percent).
“We’ve been working on it all week,” Seitz said of the Tigers’ defensive pressure. “It’s what Marshfield stands for – defense. It’s in our blood I guess. We work on it a lot.”
Varsho and Seitz each finished with 11 points to lead the Tigers. Seitz had a game-high 10 rebounds, Tiffany Stargardt added seven and Alyssa Brenner had five.
At times this year, when Varsho, the team’s leading scorer at 22 points a game, doesn’t score, Marshfied struggles. That wasn’t the case Friday.
“Tonight, Taylor did a great job at making other people better,” Michaelis said. “She got the ball into Eleni, Tiffany, Courtney (Bauer).”
Marshfield finishes off a hectic schedule with nonconference home games Saturday against Waunakee (3 p.m.) and Monday vs. Lakeland (7:30 p.m.). The Tigers return to WVC action next Friday at D.C. Everest.
Tigers 43, Panthers 15
Stevens Point 4 4 5 2 – 15
Marshfield 9 15 9 10 – 43
STEVENS POINT (15): Bryana Reisenauer 0-0 0-0 0, Ashley Nowack 0-0 0-0 0, Haley Kolbeck 0-6 1-2 1, Lauren Thompson 0-0 0-0 0, McKenzie Taggatz 1-9 0-1 2, Stephanie Golon 0-3 0-0 0, Morgan Cebula 0-6 0-0 0, Kallie Krueger 1-4 0-0 2, Nicki Hauser 1-5 1-2 3, Taylor Smola 2-4 2-3 6, Heather Woyak 0-10 1-2 1. FG: 5-47. FT: 5-10. 3-pointers: 0-10 (Kolbeck 0-2, Taggatz 0-2, Golon 0-1, Krueger 0-3, Woyak 0-2). Rebounds: 30 (Kolbeck 6). Turnovers: 15. Total fouls: 17. Fouled out: none. Record: 10-7, 5-3 Wisconsin Valley Conference.
MARSHFIELD (43): Mary Wolff 0-1 0-0 0, Taylor Varsho 3-8 4-5 11, Tiffany Stargardt 3-9 0-2 6, Leah Ripp 2-4 0-0 6, Sarah Wolff 1-4 0-0 2, Alyssa Brenner 2-6 0-0 5, Becky Boehning 0-0 0-0 0, Courtney Bauer 1-1 0-0 2, Eleni Seitz 3-9 5-6 11, Brianna Hill 0-0 0-0 0. FG: 15-42. FT: 9-13. 3-pointers: 4- 12 (Ripp 2-3, Brenner 1-2, Varsho 1-5, S. Wolff 0-1, M. Wolff 0-1). Rebounds: 36 (Seitz 10). Turnovers: 14. Total fouls: 11. Fouled out: none. Record: 13-2, 8-0 WVC.