SOUTH BEND — South Bend’s girls controlled the boards and hit enough free throws down the stretch to avenge a previous loss and earn a place at districts.
The Indians overcame cold shooting to come away with a relatively stress-free 40-22 win over Onalaska in a District Class 2B girls basketball play-in game Tuesday night at Koplitz Fieldhouse.
Entering the main bracket of the tournament, the Indians (14-7) will face Mossyrock in the winner’s bracket in Rochester today.
Jessica Sanchez had a good game working primarily from the high post and led the Indians with 16 points.
Overall, South Bend struggled to shoot jumpers but South Bend’s Karley Reidinger had some success with her stroke and had 11 points.
For a game that featured some less than ideal shooting at times, South Bend came out strong and started with an 11-0 run that forced the Loggers to call a timeout before the game got completely out of hand.
South Bend head coach Gary Wilson said that the desire to avenge last year’s season-ending loss to Onalaska seemed to give his team a little extra energy of the gate.
“The girls were really focused. Last year Onalaska knocked us out of the tournament so they had a little bit of a chip on their shoulder,” he said. “That was kind of our driving force for that initial run. I thought we were focused through warm ups and heading into that first five minutes of the game.”
It did take a while for South Bend to pull away but the Loggers had difficulty closing the gap created by the Tribe’s fast start.
Despite dealing with a significant size disadvantage in the front court. South Bend went with a 3-2 zone for most of the game and put an emphasis on shutting down passing lanes into Onalaska’s bigs. The Loggers shot only 20 percent from the field.
Wilson said he would have liked to see his team pull away earlier in the game but was glad to see his team create some distance from their competition at the line in the fourth quarter.
“The score is a little closer than the game was,” he said. “I think we were in control pretty much the whole time but we had some chances where we could have really opened it up and we just didn’t get that part of it done until later on.”
Mossyrock finished the season fourth in a highly-competitive Central League, but Wilson said his team shouldn’t be intimidated by the increased level of competition.
“They’re a good team. You work your way up to having to play the good teams if you get in that winner’s bracket,” he said. “That’s our goal, to get ourselves in that bracket and take on the big dogs.”
Onalaska 5 3 4 10 — 22
South Bend 13 6 9 12 — 40
Onalaska (22) — Cleveland 12, Bogar 3, Pannkuk 3, A. Nevitt 2, Rich, Vint, Morris, Duryea, Sabin, Hille, D. Nevitt. FG — 9-45 (.200). FT— 2-9.
South Bend (40) — Medina, Byington 2, Markwell 5, Loza, Reidinger 11, Sanchez 16, Rohr 6, Baker, Conner. FG — FG 14-54 FT— 10-14 .
