Manawa girls end season with loss
By Greg Seubert
One thing was certain as the Manawa and Algoma girls’ basketball teams opened the WIAA state tournament Feb. 23 with a Division 4 regional at Little Wolf High School:
The Wolves were going to win.
The Algoma Wolves headed to the locker room at halftime trailing by nine points, but outscored the Manawa Wolves 29-14 in the second half and returned home with a 44-40 win.
Ninth-seeded Algoma advanced to the second round of the tournament and will face top-seeded St. Mary Catholic Friday, Feb. 25, in a regional semifinal, while eighth-seeded Manawa ended its season with a 14-11 record.
Cold shooting hurt Algoma in the first half, as Manawa built a 19-5 lead in the first half. Algoma cut the lead to eight points twice, but trailed 25-15 at halftime.
Algoma began chipping away at Manawa’s lead and eventually took its first lead – 34-33 – on a three-pointer.
Manawa never got the lead back, although Mikenna Wegener tied the game at 38-38.
Free-throw shooting hurt Manawa, as the Wolves made only six of 21 attempts.
Wegener scored 10 points to lead Manawa, while Algoma’s Emily Kirchman scored all of her game-high 12 points in the second half.