Lady Warriors Outlast Lions In OT
BREMEN – It took a little more time than scheduled but the Wawasee girls basketball team came out victorious in its game against Bremen Tuesday night. The 39-37 overtime victory gives the Lady Warriors six wins on the season, tripling their total from last season.
While the game was close throughout, Wawasee showed early on that it came to win. After falling behind 4-0, the Lady Warriors used a 9-0 run to take the lead and end the quarter with a 9-5 advantage. Wawasee would extend its lead to 17-10 by the half.
Bremen started to close the gap in the second half, outscoring Wawasee 13-11 in third quarter and 11-6 in the fourth. Wawasee held a 10-point lead in the second half before watching the Lions erase that deficit to force overtime with the score knotted at 34-34.
Part of the fall-off for Wawasee in the second half was the disappearance of its two leading scorers in the fourth quarter. Kylee Rosotchak and Hannah Haines scored 25 of the team’s 28 points in the first three quarters, the duo combined for no points in the fourth quarter. It became clear in the extra session, however, that Rostochak was just waiting to create some drama for her team.
The junior knocked down her fourth three pointer of the game in overtime with 1:12 left on the clock, giving her team the go-ahead basket it needed to win the game. Though there was still plenty of time left, Bremen could not find the hoop despite having two shots to tie or win in the game’s final eight seconds.
Rostochak led all scorers with 20 points. Haines finished with eight points for the Lady Warriors.
Wawasee had lost its previous seven games before last weekend. The Lady Warriors snapped that streak with a conference victory over Concord on Saturday and backed that win up Tuesday night. What has been the difference for the Lady Warriors?
“I think the girls have just tried to take care of the little things that have been a bugaboo for us,” said Wawasee head coach Kem Zolman. “We still struggled with a few things tonight, I think there are things that we will always struggle with this year. If we can just minimize the things we do wrong, then we will be in good shape. We need to minimize those down times and get over them. We did that better tonight.
“This is a tough place to play, it always has been. It’s just one of those things. Even when I coached with the boys, this was a difficult place play. You never get any breaks. I mean zero, zilch. We didn’t get any breaks tonight. Bremen came out and played better than we had seen them play on any film we watched. This is also a bigger crowd for our girls because it was a boy/girl double-header. So, to overcome a lot of that stuff, plus overtime, this was a good win for us.”
Wawasee (6-15) will travel to Northridge (16-7) Friday night for its regular season finale. Tip is set for 7:30 p.m. The Lady Warrior junior varsity team will host Bremen Wednesday night at 6 p.m.
Wawasee will play Lakeland next Wednesday night in the opening round of IHSAA Class AAA Sectional 21 hosted by Wawasee High School. Tip is set for approximately 7:30 p.m.