Sports
UPDATED: Dominican's Unbeaten Season Ends in Semifinals
Big Kewaunee team plays strong inside and out, then makes enough free throws for 61-56 victory.
Nobody’s perfect.
Or at least that’s the case for the WIAA girls state basketball tournament as Whitefish Bay Dominican, the last remaining undefeated team in the state, lost its first game of the season at the Division 3 state semifinals to Kewaunee on Friday, 61-56 (boxscore).
“First off, congratulations to Kewaunee,” Dominican coach Kevin Schramka said. “They ran their half-court sets and took us out of rhythm a little bit in the first half.”
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“In the second half we started getting into a little bit more what we’ve done all year (and) put a lot of pressure on the ball and make it hard for teams to get that ball across half court. But Kewaunee, give them their due. They are an excellent team.”
Down 11 points entering the fourth, Schramka had his girls start sending Kewaunee to the line early and often in hopes of playing catch up the hard way.
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The strategy paid off as the Storm missed five free throws in the final 2:17 of the game and turned the ball over twice in that same span at the hands of the Knights’ increased pressure.
After trimming the lead to three, Dominican found itself in prime position as Kewaunee junior Nicole Geier missed both free throws with 48 seconds remaining. But sophomore teammate Alex Richard grabbed the rebound on the second miss and scored to end Dominican's hopes.
“We were just trying to speed up the game a little bit and make (Kewaunee’s) bigs have to take the ball up the court,” Schramka said. “We got a travel there and we wanted to take them out of their comfort zone.
“For the most part they handled our pressure until that fourth quarter where we just sped up the ball and wanted to double the ball every time.
“It started working, we just ran out of time.”
The Knights fell behind early after their normal quick style of play was matched by the Storm.
Kewaunee jumped out to an early 11-5 lead and stretched it to 27-17 at the half, largely in part to their ability to frustrate Dominican’s fast pace.
“Pretty much all season we’ve played against teams that have some great transition,” Kewaunee coach Lynn Geier said. “We knew if we could take away the transition and handle their pressure we’d be right in this game.”
Geier saw her team’s lead swell to 13 in the third quarter as sophomore guard Jill Kleiman hit a pair of threes on back-to-back possessions, followed by another shot from downtown by junior Nicole Geier.
After Dominican junior guard Dilonna Johnson, the team’s field marshal on the court, fouled out in the opening minutes of the fourth quarter, it looked like it was all over for the Knights.
That was when track star Deysha Smith-Jenkins and Mishayla Jones took over.
The duo combined for 19 points in the final 5:32 of the game, but fell just short in the end.
“I think we played with a lot of heart,” Smith-Jenkins said. “We started a little slow but in the third and fourth quarter we played with a lot heart and heart always beats height but we just fell a little short.”
Said Schramka, “I was telling our coaches we woke a little too late. We started doing the things that we were comfortable doing and speeding up the game and making it a full-court game where we have a little more space and giving our girls a little more creativity. But again, Kewaunee did a great job. They had a good game plan and certainly executed it in the first half.”
Smith-Jenkins and Jones led the way for the Knights with 21 and 20 points, respectively.
Kewaunee advances to play Altoona Saturday afternoon after the Railroaders knocked off Prairie du Chien in the day’s earlier game.
