Oriole point surge has Hodags play down the clock

The Stanley-Boyd girls varsity met the Rhinelander Hodags at DC Everest High School on Friday November 26, with the Hodags resorting to what appeared as a game of 'pass the ball' in the final min ute or so, the better to prevent losing ball possession and a last minute Oriole resurgence from catching fire late in the game. Coach Alison Becker shared some thoughts after the game was over Friday.

“We hope to get better on the defensive end of the court,” she said of the road ahead. “We need to limit our opponents to not scoring over 50 points a game and that will help us tremendously getting wins.” Becker also said having con – fidence from the game start is important, while second team all conference listee for 2020- 21 Teagen Becker has been out with a torn meniscus but should be back by January to mid-Jan uary for game play. And with that, we bring you the game.

Gaining advantage in the tipoff, Rhinelander took first scoring opportunity, with the ball then passing over to Stanley- Boyd, with determined passing action by Leslie Derks, Mallory Eslinger and Liily Hoel. The ball soon changing hands, the second Rhineland- er basket came with 15:23 left in the first half, following by a third with 14:33 left. With the score soon 8-0 in Rhinelander’s favor it was into a full time out for the Orioles to try and regroup. The time out paid off, with Eslinger scoring an Oriole two pointer at 13:02 left in the first half, bringing the score 8-2. With a pass by Hoel to Kayte Licht for three points that point deficit was soon nar rowed to 8-5.

With a two-pointer by Rhinelander then bringing the score 10-5 and a three pointer following this, the second Oriole time out for 30 seconds came at 8:05 left. With baskets by Licht and Derks for the Ori oles but a counter effort from the Hodags, the score at halftime read 26-11 as each team walked to its respective off court break space.

Coming back after the half, the Lady Orioles could be seen putting on a much stronger defense than before, the second half opening with a three-pointer by Licht at just under 17 minutes, bringing things 26-14 as to the score. With a free throw by Hazuga bringing the score 26-15 and a substitution of Hazuga by freshman Lauren Potaczek, the next couple of points were mostly Rhinelanders,’accelerating the scoreboard to 38-19 with plays by Hoel and Licht. Two pointers by Jessica Hazuga and Emma Felmlee along with Eslinger soon saw the score at 47-31, the play getting faster as the clock ran down, each team aware that time, was running out.

With a free throw bringing things 54-32, Hoel then scored a series of baskets, the Hodags

played down the clock by pass ing the ball around in Oriole territory to close the game out Friday. The final score came out to 61-46, in Rhinelander’s favor.

The score the following day was much closer, Stanley-Boyd coming within two points of beating Gresham Community at DC Everest, the final score 63 to 61.

Lauren Potaczek (left), Jessica Hazuga, and Emma Felmlee of Stanley-Boyd pause along with Annika Johnson from Rhinelander to see if Hazuga's basket will go in at DC Everest on Friday. Photo by Joseph Back.