This story is sponsored by Forward Financial Bank
By Paul Lecker
MarshfieldAreaSports.com
STEVENS POINT – As the season nears its halfway point, the Marshfield girls basketball team is still searching for consistency.
The Tigers dropped their second straight game and fell to 1-3 in the Wisconsin Valley Conference with a lackluster 63-50 defeat to Stevens Point Area Senior High on Tuesday night at SPASH.
Stevens Point (7-4, 3-1 WVC) shot 50 percent from the field (20 of 40), was 14 of 17 from the free-throw line and made 6 of 11 3-point attempts in a fairly dominating performance.
Marshfield, meanwhile, shot just 37 percent (18 of 47) and only 2 of 14 from 3-point range. The Tigers turned the ball over 10 times in the middle two quarters and were 4 of 18 from the field as they saw a 12-7 lead plummet to a 42-29 deficit heading into the fourth quarter.
“We didn’t come ready to play tonight and if you don’t come ready to play SPASH, you are going to get beat,” Marshfield coach Heidi Michaelis said. “I didn’t think the effort was there tonight, pretty much from start to finish.”
SPASH led 27-21 at halftime then scored the first eight points of the third quarter. McKenzie Taggatz hit back-to-back 3-pointers in the opening minute and Taylor Smola added a basket inside to push the Panthers lead to 35-21. The Tigers never got closer than eight points the rest of the game.
Heather Woyak scored 16 points and seven rebounds, Haley Kolbeck added 15 points and Nicki Hauser had 11 points and seven rebounds for Stevens Point.
Caitlin Michaelis had 18 points and Darian Molter added 11 for the Tigers.
“We have to figure out how to play hard all of the time,” Heidi Michaelis said. “When things aren’t going well, we need to play harder. That always hasn’t been the case. Being young only goes so far. I talked about heart tonight. It’s not always going to go perfect, but you need to show more heart than they did tonight.
“Give SPASH credit, they made big shots and played solid for four quarters. We haven’t been able to put four quarters together.”
Marshfield returns to action Friday with a nonconference game at Eau Claire North. The game will be broadcast on WDLB-AM 1450 and online at wdlbwosq.com starting with pregame at 7:10 p.m.
Panthers 63, Tigers 50
Marshfield 11 10 8 21 – 50
Stevens Point 7 20 15 21 – 63
MARSHFIELD (50): Darian Molter 4-11 2-6 11, Natalie Zuelke 1-2 0-0 2, Caitlin Michaelis 6-10 5-6 18, Emily Goeppinger 0-0 0-0 0, Lauren Gilbertson 0-0 1-2 1, Makaya Zimmerman 3-5 0-0 6, Ellie Kummer 1-11 1-2 3, Kailey Hubler 0-1 0-0 0, Ellie Fehrenbach 3-7 3-4 9. FG: 18-47. FT: 12-20. 3-pointers: 2-14 (Michaelis 1-3, Molter 1-4, Kummer 0-7). Rebounds: 27 (Fehrenbach 7). Turnovers: 12. Fouls: 18. Fouled out: Michaelis. Record: 5-5, 1-3 Wisconsin Valley Conference.
STEVENS POINT (63): Bryana Reisenauer 0-1 0-0 0, Savannah Soik 1-1 0-0 3, Haley Kolbeck 6-8 3-4 15, Heather Woyak 3-10 8-8 16, Abby Bohanski 0-2 0-0 0, McKenzie Taggatz 2-6 4-4 10, Nicki Hauser 4-6 2-2 11, Taylor Smola 4-6 0-1 8. FG: 20-40. FT: 14-16. 3-pointers: 6-11 (Taggatz 2-3, Woyak 2-6, Hauser 1-1, Soik 1-1). Rebounds: 26 (Hauser 7, Woyak 7). Turnovers: 13. Fouls: 20. Fouled out: Taggatz. Record: 7-4, 3-1 Wisconsin Valley Conference.