By Paul Lecker
MarshfieldAreaSports.com
AUBURNDALE – The first time through the Marawood Conference South Division schedule, the Auburndale High School girls basketball team did not fare well against the top teams.
A three-point loss at Edgar was followed by a pair of 14-point losses to Wisconsin Rapids Assumption and Wausau Newman Catholic, leaving the Apaches with a 4-4 record and a 3-3 mark in the conference. All three losses came on the road.
Since then, however, Auburndale has won six of seven games, including three straight in Marawood South play to improve to 10-5 overall and 6-3 in conference play. Now the Apaches get another crack at the top teams, starting with a home game against Edgar on Tuesday. Check out the Marawood Conference South standings
“Edgar is our first test. We don’t look over any team, you can’t do that,” Auburndale coach Corey Manlick said. “Edgar’s a quick team, they are scrappy. They lost to Assumption last week, so they are going to be ready to play. If we play our game, play at a high intensity, we should be fine.”
Junior Liz Breu, who leads the Marawood South in scoring at 11.8 points a game and in field goal percentage at 59.7 percent, said injuries curtailed the Apaches at the beginning of the year. Now that everyone is healthy, she said she expects a big finish to the regular season.
“We had some health problems with people getting hurt and that put us back a bit,” Breu said. “Now we’re all healthy, we’ll be back and we’re bringing it this time.”
All of the last six Apaches’ victories have come by double digits, and Manlick said it starts with Auburndale’s defense. The Apaches are second in the conference, allowing just 33 points a game.
“The defensive intensity is the first thing,” Manlick said. “I stress every day that defense wins you games, defense wins you championships. They’ve bought into the system. We’ve been giving up 25-30 points a game (during the 6-1 stretch) and that’s going to keep you in games, and hopefully win them.
“We’ve been also shooting a better percentage Against Newman and Assumption we shot around 30 percent, and recently we’ve been shooting 45 to 50 percent and that’s allowed us to win games hands down.”
Auburndale gets another crack at Assumption on Friday at home, and after a nonconference game Feb. 16 at Greenwood, the Apaches will play Newman at home on Feb. 18.
Junior guard Kelly Tomfohrde said getting off to a strong start in games was a problem during the early part of the season and the Apaches have seemed to find a way to improve on that aspect.
“Coming out ready to play with a high intensity, that’s kind of been our trouble all season,” said Tomfohrde, who is second in the league in assists at 3.0 a game and is averaging 9 points a game in Marawood action. “We have rough starts or a slow second half, playing a full game is what we’ve been trying to do. I think we’ve been doing well lately at doing that.”
Paul Lecker can be reached by e-mail at paul@marshfieldareasports.com.
