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By Paul Lecker
MarshfieldAreaSports.com
MARSHFIELD – Experience was on the side of Marshfield Columbus Catholic its girls basketball game Tuesday night against Spencer.
The Dons, playing their fourth game of the season, overcame a 6-0 start by Spencer to down the Rockets 36-24 in a Cloverbelt Conference East Division game at Columbus Catholic High School.
The game was both teams’ conference opener, and also was the season-opener for Spencer, which is replacing a number of key players from last year’s squad.
Spencer made just 9 of 43 shots from the field – 3 of 34 on shots from players other than senior center Tara Matter – and was outscored 15-6 at the free-throw line.
“A lot of girls are being expected to pick of their level of play,” Spencer coach Dan Brodziski said. “We need girls that can put the ball in the hoop. We lost a lot of points from last year, and besides Tara, that’s our main thing – who are the girls we’re going to count on.
“Being our first game, and Columbus it was their fourth game, they were a little crisper.”
Marisa Johnson scored inside and Matter had four points of her team-high 14 points to lift the Rockets to a 6-0 lead 2:44 into the game. From there, the Dons dominated.
Columbus Catholic used a zone defense to stifle the Rockets and got Matter and Johnson in foul trouble to take control.
The Dons closed the first quarter on a 9-1 run, the final three coming on a three-point play by Kayla Selz with 0.1 seconds left.
Columbus closed out what amounted to an 18-3 run over 11 minutes as Elizabeth Manlick hit a 3-pointer and Hannah Kruse made two free throws in the second quarter, putting the Dons up 18-11 at halftime.
“We real happy with the start to our season,” first-year Columbus Catholic coach Bryan DeVries said. “Each game we’ve seen major improvements in our team. Things we’ve done in practice we’ve seen translated into the game. It was their first game of the year and our fourth, and that was definitely to our advantage.”
Spencer’s struggles continued in the third quarter as a basket by Matter with 4:58 left was all it managed. Manlick scored nine of the Dons’ 10 points in the quarter as Columbus built a 28-13 lead.
Spencer cut the lead to 11 on two occasions in the fourth, but made only 4 of 16 shots in the quarter and couldn’t get any closer.
“Our girls work extremely hard in our zone,” DeVries said. “All five girls are moving on every pass – it’s really an active zone – and I think you’re going to see a lot of that from us this year.
“I see progress from our first game to tonight already. The girls are playing with a lot of confidence.”
Columbus plays at Loyal and Spencer hosts Granton in Cloverbelt East games on Friday night.
“I like their scrappiness, but we didn’t do a lot of smart things and offensively, we didn’t look to be a threat on the outside,” Brodziski said. “I told the girls to just stay positive and we’d rather be better than at the beginning. Yeah, we wanted to win this one, but we know we have a lot of girls filling different roles. It’s all about learning the speed of the varsity speed.”
Dons 36, Rockets 24
Spencer 7 4 2 11 – 24
Columbus 10 8 10 8 – 36
SPENCER (24): Karly Bump 1-3 0-0 2, Marisa Johnson 1-7 1-2 3, Alicia Endreas 0-7 1-4 1, Claire Drews 0-6 0-0 0, Kailyn Anderson 1-6 2-2 4, Macie Weber 0-4 0-0 0, Tara Matter 6-9 2-3 14, Rachel Zastrow 0-1 0-0 0, Melissa Lehman 0-0 0-2 0. FG: 9-43. FT: 6-13. 3-pointers: 0-5 (Johnson 0-2, Endreas 0-1, Drews 0-1, Matter 0-1). Rebounds: 27 (Anderson 5). Turnovers: 18. Fouls: 20. Fouled out: Matter. Record: 0-1 overall and Cloverbelt East.
COLUMBUS (36): Paige Thornton 1-1 0-0 2, Elizabeth Manlick 6-16 4-7 17, Alisiha Reigel 0-0 0-0 0, Abby Strobel 0-0 0-2 0, Kayla Selz 1-5 4-5 6, Hannah Stratman 0-2 0-0 0, Rebecca Lamermayer 0-0 0-0 0, Hannah Kruse 1-1 7-11 9, Lindsay Hertel 0-1 0-1 0, Catherine Pinter 1-3 0-0 2. FG: 10-29. FT: 15-26. 3-pointers: 1-4 (Manlick 1-1, Selz 0-3). Rebounds: 32 (Kruse 7, Selz 6, Hertel 6). Turnovers: 21. Fouls: 13. Fouled out: none. Record: 3-1, 1-0 Cloverbelt East.