Irish girls take a tough basketball loss

In the short three-day week before Christmas break, the Irish ladies had a tough loss against the Pierz Pioneers on December 21. The game was a back-and-forth battle between both teams, and the Irish ended up losing by a mere point, with a score of 56-57.

Throughout the first half the girls played decent basketball, shooting ten for ten from the free-throw line and going into the half with a fivepoint lead over the Pioneers.

But the second half of the game became closer and everything got a little more intense. Coming out of the half, Pierz was able to outscore Maple Lake 22 to 13 in the third quarter. And even though the Irish came back and scored 16 points, compared to the Pioneer’s 12, in the fourth, the girls were one point short of victory.

During the fourth quarter both teams were in the double bonus, and with only 16 seconds left on the clock Rachel Sawatzke was fouled. Sawatzke made both of the free-throws to tie up the game. Then, with only four seconds left, there was a very controversial call which left the Pioneers at the line, where they made one of the two free-throws to win the game.

Throughout the game, mainly in the second half, turnovers, defensive breakdowns and foul trouble caused some difficulty for the Irish. Also, in the second half, the Irish only made 11 of their 19 free-throw attempts.

“It was a great high school basketball game,” said Coach John Riewer. “We had plenty of chances and opportunities throughout the ball game. Again, we just had trouble capitalizing on them.

“Throughout the game we had a great effort, but we just came up a little short.”

Leading the team in scoring for the night was Rachel Sawatzke with 14, then Jen Kempenich with 11, Rachel Hudek with 8, and both Sarah Dombrovski and Lindsey Smith with 7.

Sawatzke also led in rebounding, with an outstanding 14 boards, and Dombrovski and Kempenich followed with 7 each.

The Irish are now on almost a two-week break, but coming back from Christmas vacation, they have a tough schedule in January with nine games, three in the first week.