November 21, 2022 at 8:23 a.m.
Cardinals too much for Lady Hodags in opener
Cardinals too much for Lady Hodags in opener
Leah Palubicki led five Cardinals in double digits as Crandon dominated the glass and the paint in a 75-35 victory over the Hodags.
Palubicki had 23 points and 12 rebounds - 10 of which came on the offensive glass. Crandon out-rebounded Rhinelander by a 49-23 margin and had more offensive rebounds (27) than Rhinelander had total rebounds.
"They just killed us inside," Clark said. "That wasn't necessarily a lack of effort. Sometimes we didn't slide and rotate correctly but, going forward, I'm going to have to make some decisions as far as can we play this, knowing that we're going to give up so much size. It's height and physicality and weight. We're just not very big."
Ava Lamers had 23 points to lead Rhinelander. She is the lone returning starter from the team that went 16-10 last year. The lack of varsity experienced showed in the early going Thursday.
Crandon used an 11-1 run to push the lead to 20-8 with 11:01 remaining in the opening half and then had a 12-1 spurt to close the half as it took a 38-16 lead at the break.
Lamers did the bulk of the work offensively for Rhinelander as the only player on the floor for the Hodags who logged significant varsity minutes last year. Projected starter Lily Treder, who averaged 4.7 points per game off the bench last season, missed Thursday's game due to a dental procedure.
Lamers finished 8 of 20 from the field. As a team, Rhinelander was just under 32% on 13 of 41 shooting.
"Ava's a warrior. She plays really hard. She's always competing, even when were down 20-something, she picked off that inbound bass and went and scored," Clark said. "We've got to use her everywhere. She gives maximum effort at all times. I think she's always going to score in the 20s for us. It's just that can we get more than (her). You'd like three kids in double figures. That would be great."
Leah Jamison had eight points for Rhinelander in her first varsity start. The junior had Rhinelander's opening basket, stopping a 7-0 Crandon run, and also hit a pair of 3s early in the second half.
The rest of Rhinelander's rotation was hardly able to generate any offense. Morgan Van Zile missed a 3 with 12 seconds left in the first half - the first Rhinelander shot attempt that was not by Lamers or Jamison. Collectively, the rest of the team had four points and attempted only seven shots.
"If you don't look to take a shot, you're not a threat offensively and then they can really tee off on the other kids," Clark said. "I think that's our varsity inexperience coming through a little bit. We're not a great shooting team, but you've got to be willing to shoot it and be fearless."
Defensively, Rhinelander's 1-3-1 could not slow down a Crandon squad that saw all five of its starters reach double digits scoring. Lauren Littleton added 12 points and 10 rebounds, Holly Palubicki and Mara Stamper each had 11 points while Abby Adamski chipped in 10 points.
Crandon dominated inside, holding a 52-10 edge in points in the paint. The Cardinals also scored 21 second chance points. Clark said while he likes the 1-3-1 for its ability to generate live-ball turnovers in the half court he may rethink the philosophy moving forward because of the liabilities it creates on the glass.
"One of the criticisms against the 1-3-1 is just defensive rebounding, because you kind of space it out and the shot goes up and you don't really have a body to get a block out on," he said. "In general, you worry about giving up the offensive rebound. Being so small, we gave up 26 offensive rebounds and they scored a lot of them.
"I might have to make a few adjustments, whether we (stick with the 1-3-1 or) switch to something else, but I told the girls that's a concern on my part that I'm going to have to readjust on."
The schedule did not get any easier for Rhinelander on Monday as it traveled to Rice Lake, a team Clark considers one of the favorites to advance out of the northern D2 sectional to the WIAA state tournament. That game concluded after deadline for today's edition.
The Hodags have added another non-conference game at Ashland tonight before traveling to Wausau this weekend to face D.C. Everest and Holmen in the Tom Kislow Memorial Tournament Friday and Saturday.
"Ideally, with the experience that we have, if I could create the schedule, I'd want to have six weeks of practice and one game, but we'll get better right away," Clark said. "We're going to get thrown in the fire and we just have to respond. I think we'll find out a lot about ourselves the next two weeks here and then we can kind of get back to practicing a little bit. The schedule kind of evens out."
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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