Fond du Lac too much for Bulldogs

By Erik Buchinger

An inexperienced New London girls’ basketball team was defeated 79-39 at home in the Bulldogs’ season opener against Fond du Lac on Friday, Nov. 17.

New London head coach Troy Krause said his team struggled against Fond du Lac’s trap defense.

“We just looked like deer in headlights a little bit,” Krause said. “That’s a tough first game with such a young team to come out with a 1-3-1 trapping zone, and Fond du Lac was pretty good at it. Things didn’t go our way early, and I think we let that get to us. It just snowballed out of control.”

The Bulldogs were led by Kate Christian, who scored a team-high 13 points, and Myah Henderson added 11 points.

“I thought [Christian] did pretty well,” Krause said. “We asked a lot of her. As you can see, she needs to get our offense started. We probably played her a little bit too much in that situation, but she’s the one that can get us going.”

The Bulldogs went into halftime with a 47-25 deficit, and Fond du Lac pulled away in the second half. The Cardinal were led by 31 points from Ally Gietzel, who recently signed to play Division 1 college basketball at Illinois State University.

“We always try to play pretty tough non-conference games, and they’re a good team,” Krause said. “Ally is a great player, and she’s very good on that 1-3-1 on top because she’s so long and lanky on that. They’re a good team, and they shot the ball extremely well.”

Krause said the Bulldogs need to work on cutting down the turnovers going into their next game on Tuesday, Nov. 21 at Winneconne.

“We’ve got to take care of the ball and execute a little bit better,” Krause said. “I didn’t think we executed both offensively and defensively. We’ve got to work on that and just take baby steps. We can’t get it all back in one or two practices. We just have to build off the things we did well.”