The Oriole girls varsity basketball started its season last week Tuesday against Wausau East, coming away with a 65-48 win against the Lumberjacks. Heading to Ladysmith Thursday, they followed this up with a 63-56 win against the Lumberjills.
Oriole girls varsity head coach Ryan Wundrow shared thoughts after results.
“We were very fortunate to get to pick up a game with Wausau East after a scheduling problem,” he said. “We were very thankful to get that game. We struggled at first in the Wausau game, we were a little nervous and there was a lot of new faces playing together for the first time. After getting down 13 at one point the girls turned the heat up on defense and started creating a lot of easy offense from defensive steals. We went on to win that game by 19. It was a great first game and we learned a lot about ourselves. We played a really good team on Thursday in Ladysmith. They finished fourth in their conference last year and brought every player back. They were a 15 win team last year and only got better. We battled back and forth most of the game until again our defense created a bunch of opportunity on offense. We made some very opportunistic shots and finished by making free throws. Kendall Sikora, Caitlen Ketterhagen led us is scoring in both games, but it was our team defense that was the difference. With Ella Nitz, Alaina Nitz, and Kendall Sikora holding down the lane we are able to put a lot of pressure on the ball handler with our speed.
“We are still learning how to play in our systems so we will continue to develop this mostly very young team. I think the girls are starting to believe in what we do and how it should look which increases their confidence.”
Now 2-0 for the season, the girls were due to play Owen-Withee Tuesday, November 25 at Owen-Withee.