Lady Hodags fall to No. 9 SPASH on the road

The Rhinelander High School girls’ basketball team couldn’t keep up with one of the state’s best Division 1 programs on Tuesday night, falling to Stevens Point 61-32 in a non-conference matchup in Stevens Point.

Jada Seubert had 20 points and Leah Awe chipped in 18 to lead three Panthers in double figures. SPASH (6-2, 2-0 Wisconsin Valley) came into the game ranked No. 9 in the Bound Wisconsin/Zaleski Sports Division 1 media poll.

“SPASH right now is executing at a really high level,” Hodag girls’ basketball coach Ryan Clark said. “I think they have obviously two really good players, but the surrounding cast and their scheme, everyone’s just doing their job. In contrast with us, we’re just struggling, especially offensively. Defensively, we did OK. We had some breakdowns here and there, but I thought for the most part we did a pretty good job.”

The Panthers led wire-to-wire against the Hodags (3-4, 1-2 Great Northern). Rhinelander hung around for the first 10-plus minutes of the game, but the Panthers went on a 15-2 run over the final 7:15 of the first half to take a 31-12 lead at the break. SPASH started the second on a 7-0 run and the closest Rhinelander got the rest of the way was down 20 points. 

“Great opportunity to play against a really nice basketball team. I thought, mentally we had a good mindset,” coach Clark said. “I thought we played really hard. I don’t think the score was indicative of how we played, as far as competitiveness. I thought we were really competitive. That stuff was a positive.”

Aubryn Clark led the Hodags with 20 points and Vivian Lamers chipped in seven, but the rest of the squad had only five points in the game. Coach Clark said Point’s mix of man and zone defenses kept his team off balance much of the night. 

“That just got us in kind of a grind. We really struggled to execute our offense, he said. “They just had us discombobulated the entire game. And I think our way of trying to execute out of that (is), we just settle for a lot of tough 3s. We didn’t make very many of them. We shot a bunch of them. Instead of maybe executing a little bit better, we just kind of prayed we’d make a deep shot.”

Shooting statistics from the game were unavailable as of press time for today’s edition. 

Ellie Strong added 10 points for the Panthers, but much of the night was dominated by SPASH’s dynamic duo of Seubert and Awe, who are two of the top players in the state in their respective classes. 

“I thought we defended Seubert really well, but they run a lot of good actions for her. They get a flare screen for her. They got some curls for her,” coach Clark said. “And then Awe, she’s just tough when she wants to go post up. I thought we did a pretty good job on her on the perimeter. But there were times where she would just dive to that strong side block and then they did a nice job of entering a to her really high and she finishes, if she gets within five, six feet of the hoop, she’s going to finish the round the basket really well.” 

Three of Rhinelander’s four losses so far this season have come against team’s that have been ranked inside the top 10 in the state in their respective division at some point during the year (Stevens Point, Mosinee and Eau Claire Regis). 

“The disappointing part for us was that, you don’t get a lot of these opportunities, so you get a chance to play a really good team and really see what you’re doing well and what you need to work on, and then you play some other teams that are maybe not as strong, and your deficiencies are kind of like covered a little bit,” coach Clark said. “We got things we can clean up. We can all get better. Collectively we will get better. We take every team serious. It’s now our opportunity to get better and we’ll just go play. But yeah, that was kind of the disappointing. We wanted to really put on a better show against the quality opponent.”

The Hodags will have another one of those tests on the docket coming up this coming Monday when they host No. 2 (D5) Wisconsin Rapids Assumption at the Jim Miazga Community Gymnasium. 

Prior to that, that Hodags host Northland Pines in GNC play tonight at the Miazga Gym. That game gets underway at 6 p.m. and kicks off a girls-boys doubleheader against the Eagles.

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].