PC girls move to regional finals, Prescott's season over.
Plum City will look to win its first WIAA regional title in girls basketball since 1999 after winning Friday night at home over Cochrane-Fountain City 49-43 in a Division 5 semifinal game.
- Plum City's Marah Boyer
- Plum City's Elaina Danzinger
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Plum City will look to win its first WIAA regional tournament title in girls basketball since 1999 after winning Friday night at home over Cochrane-Fountain City 49-43 in a Division 5 semifinal game.
Meanwhile, Prescott's girls hoops team found No. 1 ranked, unbeaten and defending state champion Neillsville just too tough as they lost 56-26 in a Division 3 regional semifinal at Neillsville to end the season at 14-10 overall.
The Warriors, 23-0, overwhelmed PHS from start of the game, leading 15-5 after the first quarter and then outscoring No. 8 seeded Prescott 14-3 in the second.
Cassie Murphy led the Cardinals with six points and Emily Bayer had five points. Neillsville was led in scoring by Jenny Linder and Molly Attoe with 10 points each.
Meanwhile, No. 2 seed Plum City won at home but not before gutting out a win over the No. 3 seeded Pirates, a far cry from the first time the two teams played this season where the Blue Devils won easily 44-30.
"They played much harder in this ballgame," PC head coach John Pollock said. "And in so doing they used their strengths, which is their size and length on defense, to close passing lanes and take away our inside game. They forced a lot of turnovers on our part."
After a great start, leading 15-6 to end the first quarter, Plum City was outscored by C-FC 14-4 in the second quarter. Actually it was Laura Kramer doing the scoring as she single-handily put C-FC in front at halftime with 12 of her game-high 23 points.
Plum City still trailed 27-24 late in the third quarter when a pair of free-throws by Elaina Danzinger plus a steal and lay-up by Sarah Gilles gave the home team a 30-27 edge again in the ballgame. The game went back and forth to start the fourth quarter until Gilles came through again with another big shot, a three pointer which turned the crowded PC gymnasium into a cauldron of noise and had Plum City up by five points, a foothold they expanded to eight points late in the ballagme.
"We kept our composure and focus throughout the game," Gilles said. "It's not easy to do because it gets really loud in here when everyone is yelling. We never panicked and our defense was strong tonight."
Gilles finished with 10 points and Heather Von Holtum also had 10 points for PC. Marah Boyer's 19 points offset those of Kramer. No one else for C-FC, 13-11 overall, was in double figures. PC outscored C-FC 17-11 at the free-throw line.
The Blue Devils assure themselves of no worse than a .500 record even if they lose tonight's regional final at Eleva-Strum. But no one on the PC side is talking about losing.
"We have a confidence now to pull games out like this that we lacked before," Pollock said. "Instead of thinking how nice it would be to win, we expect to win."
The No. 1 seeded Cardinals, 13-11 overall, are the Dairyland Conference's Large Division champions, and are coming off a 66-58 win over Blair-Taylor in the regional semifinals. Central is led by their backcourt, guards senior Ali Lorenz and junior Kara Enos. Enos leads the team in scoring with 14 points per game while Lorenz averages 12.6 ppg.
Tip-off is at 7 p.m.
Tags: prep girls basketball, plum city, sports, prep, prescott
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