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By Paul Lecker
MarshfieldAreaSports.com
MARSHFIELD – The Marshfield Columbus Catholic girls basketball team didn’t have its best game offensively, but it did more than enough on the defensive end to pull out a victory.
The Dons forced 25 turnovers, including 15 in the first half, and went on to defeat Spencer 51-40 in a Cloverbelt Conference East Division game Monday night at Columbus Catholic High School.
Marissa Immerfall did most of her damage inside, scoring a team-high 18 points and grabbing seven rebounds to lead Columbus Catholic (6-2, 3-1 Cloverbelt East).
“I thought we played extremely well in the first half, and in the second half we started experimenting with some different combinations on the floor and with our 2-3 zone offense,” Columbus coach Marty Draxler said.
Spencer (1-5, 1-4 Cloverbelt East) scored the first five points of the game before the Dons ripped off the next 15 to open up a double-digit lead.
Columbus held Spencer scoreless for nearly 7 minutes before Lexi Baehr, who finished with a game-high 25 points, hit a 3-pointer.
Columbus put together a 10-0 run, highlighted by four points from Maren Seefluth and a 3-pointer by Morgan Albrecht, to go ahead 29-13, and the Dons led by double digits the rest of the game.
Seven different Dons scored and 11 players saw minutes on the floor during the win.
“I like to trap and I like to press, and as our bench gets deeper, it’s going to help us long term,” Draxler said. “I looked at (Spencer) in the first half and they looked somewhat tired, and I looked at our girls on the bench having water knowing they are going to go in in 3 minutes.”
Turnovers plagued both teams during the first 10 minutes of the second half. A basket by Immerfall put the Dons up 46-28 before Spencer finally got its offense going a bit.
Aryiah Schuh made a basket and two free throws, and Baehr hit her fourth 3-pointer and three free throws after being fouled attempting another, to help Spencer close to within 10 with 1:58 to go, but the Rockets couldn’t make another basket.
“Taking care of the ball and boxing out on defense – our first 10 minutes were bad, they were getting a lot of second chances, we had six fouls, but once cleaned that up, things got much better,” Spencer coach Brian Abel said. “We’re definitely building in the right direction and we just have to keep it going and build some confidence up.”
Both teams return to Cloverbelt East action on Thursday as Columbus is at Gilman and Spencer plays at Loyal.
Dons 51, Rockets 40
Spencer 21 19 – 40
Columbus Catholic 37 14 – 51
SPENCER (40): McKenna Brecht 1-7 1-2 3, Kaily Northup 0-4 1-3 1, Aryiah Schuh 2-10 2-2 6, Lexi Baehr 7-15 8-9 26, Tiffany Meinders 1-5 0-0 2, Kathryn Hall 0-2 2-2 2, Kayla Hopperdietzel 0-0 0-0 0. FG: 11-43. FT: 14-18. 3-pointers: 4-15 (Baehr 4-10, Schuh 0-3, Brecht 0-2). Rebounds: 38 (Baehr 11). Turnovers: 25. Fouls: 14. Fouled out: none. Record: 1-5, 1-4 Cloverbelt Conference East Division.
COLUMBUS CATHOLIC (51): Annika Brown 1-3 0-0 2, Morgan Albrecht 3-13 0-2 8, Hailey Roehl 2-13 3-6 7, Maren Seefluth 1-3 4-4 6, Addison Baierl 2-7 2-2 8, Katie Hall 0-2 0-0 0, Zoe Stratman 1-2 0-0 2, Annie Baierl 0-1 0-0 0, Marissa Immerfall 7-14 4-4 18, Holly Dean 0-1 0-0 0, Ashley Dean 0-0 0-0 0. FG: 17-59. FT: 13-18. 3-pointers: 4-18 (Albrecht 2-8, Ad. Baierl 2-7, An. Baierl 0-1, Roehl 0-2). Rebounds: 30 (Immerfall 7). Turnovers: 20. Fouls: 18. Fouled out: none. Record: 6-2, 3-1 Cloverbelt Conference East Division.