Shawano girls stifled by ranked Slinger

The Slinger girls basketball team is amongst the best Division 2 teams in the state. On Friday afternoon, Shawano learned firsthand why the Owls are regarded so highly.

Slinger did not allow Shawano to score a single point in the first half and went on for a 52-29 win in a Sun Drop Shootout matchup on Friday at the Kress Center in Green Bay.

“They do a great job, that’s why they are a ranked team in state. They’ve been doing it for years, you can tell they all work very well on it,” Shawano coach Ryan Koenig said of Slinger’s pressure defense. “They are strong and we let them push us around a little bit. And when we did that, then there’s turnovers and off-balance stuff and they do a good job of keeping you off-balance… .”

Slinger’s full-court pressure had Shawano (7-4) all out of sorts in the first half. If the Owls (10-1) were not forcing turnovers, they were making Shawano rush shots.

Passes to open teammates seemed to be a second or two late. Every rebound seemed to be landing in the hands of an Owl and Hawks were gasping for breath on the court as the Owls’ pace was overwhelming.

After a long halftime message, the Hawks showed fight in the second half, but Slinger always seemed to have an answer.

Senior Tori DePerry scored the team’s first basket more than 3 minutes into the second half and senior Hailey Buschman followed with a 3-pointer to trim the Hawks’ deficit to 20, but Slinger responded with back-to-back 3-pointers to regain the momentum.

With the frustrating loss now behind them, the Hawks are hoping the setback is one they can learn from instead of one that hangs over their head in the coming weeks.

“We need to play as a team,” Koenig said. “We can’t try to do everything yourself, and we had a lot of girls trying to do everything themselves. We have to stay within the system, stay within what we’ve talked about in executing the gameplan and we’ll be just fine. Hopefully, that’s what sticks in the back of their heads — that when things get rough, we go back to what we know and we can draw off of that. It didn’t happen in the first half, but hopefully going forward it does if we get in a tough game and things aren’t going our way.”

“We just need to go into practice and work on the things we did wrong,” senior Kayla Ward said. “Go 110 percent in practice then hopefully by the next game, we don’t do it again. Just keep reminding yourself that losing a game is not the end of the world, it can always happen. Anything can happen in a game, you just have to put 110 percent into it every single time.”

Shawano will not have another game to try and erase the memory of the lopsided loss before its Bay Conference showdown with West De Pere next Friday. Both teams currently own 5-0 conference marks.

Slinger (52)

Taylor Rhodes 0-0 2, Sydney Reinhardt 3-4 5, Maddie Rothenhoefer 0-2 2, Hannah Schroeder 0-0 2, Anna Breuer 0-2 5, Kate Hosking 0-0 10, CaSandra Warmsly 0-2 4, Kacey Ott 0-0 2, Hannah Brooks 0-0 8, Kacie O’Hearn 0-0 2, Ramsey McGrew 0-0 10.

Shawano (29)

Lydia Beyer 0-0 2, Kennedy Klemens 0-0 2, Rachel Reed 0-0 6, Hailey Buschman 0-0 3, Tori DePerry 1-2 7, Kayla Ward 1-2 3, Taylor Johnson 2-3 4, Avery Dreier 0-0 2.

Slinger 22 30 — 52

Shawano 0 29 — 29