A 15-4 scoring advantage in the fourth quarter helped the Waupaca Comet girls’ basketball team pick up a 49-30 Eastern Valley Conference win over Winneconne Friday, Jan. 21.
The Comets also handed Little Chute a 58-53 defeat Tuesday, Jan. 18.
Waupaca 49,
Winneconne 30
WINNECONNE – Waupaca scored the game’s first six points and never trailed.
The Comets led 13-8 after the first quarter, 17-15 at halftime and 34-26 after three quarters.
“We’ve been working on trying to get them ready for the beginning of the game,” coach Brandon Temperly said. “Something clicked tonight and I could tell they were ready to go.”
Lexie Marringa led the Comets with 11 points, while Abbey Lazers also finished in double figures with 10.
“This was probably our best passing game,” Temperly said. “The girls read passes better than they have all year.”
Waupaca 58,
Little Chute 53
Lazers and Kristen Fuss teamed up to score 35 of Waupaca’s points.
Lazers scored half of her game-high 18 points in the fourth quarter, while Fuss added 17.
Little Chute took an 11-6 lead into the second quarter and led 27-20 at halftime. However, the Mustangs were outscored 38-26 in the second half.
The Mustangs scored 11 of the game’s first 12 points and also led by 12 late in the second quarter.
“That’s been our MO, just starting slow,” Temperly said. “We’ve worked on that. We’ve changed warmups around and tried to get them in a different mental state where they’re ready to play. That’s one thing we still have to improve on. Once we got into the flow of a game, we played really well.
“We used a timeout with about two minutes and 30 seconds left (in the first half) and I really got on the girls’ case,” he added. “They responded, got their act together and started to play Comet basketball.”
Waupaca turned the ball over 15 times in the first half, but only five times in the second half.
“I thought we took good shots and held the ball for an extended period of time before we took that shot,” Temperly said. “I was pleased with our execution down the stretch. We showed a lot of character. There was a lot of adversity on that floor tonight. There were multiple things that didn’t go our way. The girls fought through it, they overcame and we got a great win.”
Waupaca took on a Division 1 opponent Tuesday, Jan. 25, at Stevens Point and will return to conference play at 7:15 tonight (Thursday, Jan. 27) at home against Appleton Xavier.
“We only lost to them by four,” Temperly said of the Hawks. “We’d like to have another crack at them, especially now that we’re playing better.”