Girls: Basketball: Gresham looking to improve under new coach

Clintonville, Marion expecting players to step up
By: 
Morgan Rode
Sports Editor

GRESHAM — The Gresham Community High School girls basketball enters the 2019-20 season under a new coach and trying to improve its conference standing.

Newell Haffner is the team’s new head coach after the Wildcats went 5-17 overall and 4-8 in the Central Wisconsin Conference-North Division last year.

Haffner will have to replace a couple of key players from that team, but does get back a strong core, led by Valarie Cerveny and Makayla Belongia.

Cerveny made the all-conference second team as a freshman last year, while Belongia was an honorable mention as a sophomore.

Sophomore Hannah Cerveny also returns with starting experience while seniors Brookyln Hoffman and Georgia Schultz and juniors Kaylee Bohm and Destiny Reindl all have varsity experience.

“To be successful, we need to work together as a team, and to put all our effort into every game,” said Belongia.

Gresham will open the regular season hosting Lena on Thursday.

Clintonville

In the North Eastern Conference, Clintonville is already dealing with a bit of adversity.

“We lost one of our senior starters in Lizzy Weatherwax to a torn ACL, so that is a big blow for us,” said Clintonville coach Nick Yaeger. “We still expect to compete in our conference and do well. We have some young players on our team that have an opportunity to contribute.”

Clintonville went 8-16 overall and had a 6-12 mark in the NEC last year, and return several key contributors from that team.

Leading the charge will be seniors Elly Arndt, Erin Viergutz and Abby King, who all started for the team a year ago. Ardnt and Viergutz each made the conference’s honorable mention team as juniors.

Junior Selina Torrez and sophomores Jordan Lehman and Hannah Strong also have varsity experience and help round out a strong core for the Truckers.

The Truckers open their regular season at Antigo on Thursday.

Marion

Back in the CWC-North, Marion is hoping to get some first-time varsity players acclimated to the speed and pace of the game as the season gets rolling.

Under coach Brad Fischer, the Mustangs finished 4-19 overall and 2-10 in the CWC-North last year.

Fischer gets three starters back from that team, one of which is do-it-all senior Kyla Zillmer, who serves as a team captain.

Senior Tessa Brei and sophomore Eden Brennan also started games for the team last year.

“Like every year, I look for us to play tough and competitive. If we are able to do that, I think we can be in the middle of conference at the end of the year,” said Fischer. “We do not have much varsity experience, but we do have some new players coming into the program that will have to step up and help us right away.”

Senior Callie Miller and freshmen Kelsee Zillmer, Morgan Krueger and Grace Bradley are among the players Fischer hopes can get acclimated to the varsity game and help the team out on the court.

The Mustangs open their regular season traveling to take on Almond-Bancroft on Thursday.

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