Balanced Attack Leads Bay Girls Past Grafton

Whitefish Bay girls basketball head coach Greg Capper doesn't like to define his players with position titles, but rather thinks any girl can play any spot on the floor for his team.

That mentality was most evident Friday night in the Dukes' win over North Shore conference rival Grafton, 37-28.

"We're going to develop all of our players, through every level of the system, to be able to pass and catch a basketball, score versus pressure and play defense," coach Capper said. "We don't have centers, we don't have forwards, we don't have guards. We have basketball players and that makes it very difficult to guard when all five people can handle the ball against the press. All five people can find a way to score. All five people can get in a defensive stance.

"At the end of the day, that's hard to play against."

Grafton (8-9 overall, 4-7 North Shore) found that out the hard way as they struggled to score all night against the Blue Dukes (11-4 overall, 8-2 NSC), and down only six with 3:08 remaining in the game, couldn't find a crack in Whitefish Bay's defense again in the losing effort.

It wasn't just late in the game that the Black Hawks struggled to find the bottom of the net. The Dukes limited Grafton to one-and-done possessions the entire second quarter and only gave up a buzzer-beater at halftime to end their 12-0 run.

"(It comes down to) fundamentals," Grafton head coach Bob Maronde said. "In the first half we had three straight possessions where we had three unforced turnovers. And then two minutes later we turned it over and lost the person on defense. That's five turnovers within two minutes and they got eight points out of it.

“That's huge.”

The Dukes not only don’t play true to their positions, but they are also well balanced.

In the first half they jumped on the back of sophomore Elisabeth Johnston as she poured in all 10 of her points in the first 18 minutes of action. Once Grafton keyed in on Johnston, the Dukes went to their 6’1” freshman in Maya Jonas, who added 11 more points, nine of which came after the break.

Sprinkle in another 10 points from senior guard Leslie Fuda in between the two and that makes for a tough offense to guard.

“Bob (Maronde) is a tremendous coach,” Capper said. “Grafton has a tremendous reputation in this state. Anytime you can compete and beat Grafton, for us, at this stage of our program, it’s a good win for us.”

Junior Emily Schreiner scored eight points to lead the Black Hawks.

The Dukes have a busy week ahead of them as they have three road games in the next eight days, the first of which comes Tuesday night as the team travels to St. Thomas More to take on the Cavaliers.

Box score:

Grafton: 7-2-13-6---28

Whitefish Bay: 6-12-14-5---37

Grafton: Benzschawel 0 0-0 3, Eichler 1 2-2 7, Orlowski 0 0-0 3, Schacht 0 4-6 7, Schreiner 4 0-0 8.

Whitefish Bay: Agnew 2 0-0 4, Fuda 3 4-4 10, Johnston 5 0-0 10, Jonas 4 3-6 11, Switzer 1 0-0 2.

Threes: Grafton: Benzschawel, Eichler, Orlowski, Schacht.