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EVANSVILLE - Things didn’t go the Brandon-Evansville girls basketball team’s way in its 81-51 loss to Wheaton-Herman-Norcross on Tuesday on, Jan. 10, 2023. However, the team is still finding and focusing on the positives from the loss.
“The biggest good thing was our offense,” B-E head coach Steve Schreiber said. “We've been running it really well this year, but sometimes we’ve been very timid shooting the ball. I wanted to see us get shots off, and I feel like we did a really good job of using the offense to get shots. It wasn't just one girl taking all the shots. And that's important for us too.”
Tuesday’s game was the first time B-E scored over 50 points this season, and its previous season-high came in its 45-41 win over Rothsay on Dec. 16, 2022.
“I thought at the beginning of the year, we were going to be a team that hit 50 points fairly regularly,” Schreiber said. “It’s just been that we haven’t gotten enough shots up, so hopefully, we can carry this outing over to the next one.”
The Chargers (1-8) kept things close early in the first half, but the Warriors (4-5) began to distance themselves on the scoreboard late in the first half.
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W-H-N senior Brylie Schultz, a 6-foot-2 post player who is committed to play college basketball at the University of Nebraska-Kearney (NCAA DII) next fall, had a big impact in the game on Tuesday on both sides of the ball and led all scorers with 29 points on the night.
“She's a division two college basketball player that will get major playing time next year, and she’s somebody that you don't get at a small school all that often,” Schreiber said of Schultz. “We tried to front her, we tried to three-quarter front her, and we tried to play behind her with help. There's just not much you can do when out-heights you all by five inches. She's a very good basketball player on top of that. She could have been our height, and she still probably would have scored 20 some points just because of her ability to score.”
Schultz had 19 points in the first half and helped the Warriors build a 37-22 lead at halftime.
“I talked to the girls after the game about watching the film, making some schemes, and maybe making a couple of changes and adjustments that maybe would’ve given her some different looks,” Schreiber said. “We're going to come up with something and then try and take that 29 points and maybe turn it into something in the low teens. It gives us a chance. If you take her out of this game, we're right there with them. So we're going to have to find a way to do that without letting somebody else get hot.”
Schultz was joined in double figures by Julia Schmidt, who had points, and Jordyn Perry, who had 14 points.
The Chargers were led in scoring by sophomore Haddy Baune, who had 13 points, and junior Kylee Dingwall, who had 11 points.
“We've been practicing almost every day with a lot of shooting drills and taking the right shots at the right time,” senior EmmaLee Brethorst said.
Senior Grace Otto said that shooting is one of the team’s main strengths.
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“I think we have some really good shooters, and we take the ball to the hoop at really strong angles,” Otto said.
As the season has gone on, Schreiber has noticed the team’s strong work ethic and is proud of it.
“If you came to our practices, you’d see that these girls don’t stop working,” Schreiber said. “The record doesn't matter for us right now. We just want to go out, and we want to be a little bit better each day. We've got a little bit of a size disadvantage when it comes to a lot of the teams we play. And these girls are just really having to work hard to make up for that. The growth from our first practice to now has been great. I think we’re going to continue to grow.”
The Chargers aim to put this loss behind them and focus on their game on Friday, Jan. 13, against the Ashby Arrows (1-8) at 7:15 p.m. in Evansville.
“We just focus on the positives,” Otto said. “We don't drag on the negatives, and we just go on to the next game just with positive attitudes and forget the last game.”
W-H-N - 37 44 - 81
B-E - 21 30 - 51
W-H-N SCORING - Megyn Kelly, 8 points; Jordyn Perry, 14 points; Brylie Schultz - 29 points; Julia Schmidt - 15 points; Reagan Spilde - 2 points; Sadie Vipond - 4 points; Braylen Schmidt - 9 points
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B-E SCORING - Taylor Dingwall, 4 points; Sydney Schaefer - 6 points; EmmaLee Brethorst - 2 points; Ava Santjer - 2 points; Haddy Baune - 13 points; Kylee Dingwall - 11 points; Maia Elmer - 7 points; Madeline Anderson - 4 points; Kayla Bitzan-Anderson, 2 points
