If things fall into place for the Shawano girls basketball team, the Hawks will be one of the favorites to win a Bay Conference championship.
Although it’s still early in the season, coach Ryan Koenig is convinced his team is headed in the right direction. The Hawks improved to 4-0 on Dec. 4 with a 58-27 nonconference win over Waupaca on the Comets’ home court.
Leah Nordin scored 16 of her game-high 29 points in the first half as Shawano led 37-11 at halftime. Waupaca never got any closer than that 26-point deficit in the second half.
The Hawks built their lead in the first half with a 12-0 run before scoring the final 14 points before the break.
The Comets had trouble keeping Nordin in check while the Hawks held Waupaca’s leading scorer, Hailey Bechard, to five points. Nordin scored 13 straight points for Shawano in the second half that turned a 40-14 lead into a 53-20 advantage.
Nordin makes her teammates better players, according to Koenig.
“A couple of those passes in the first half, I told her that’s the best thing I’ve seen lately out of her in our games,” he said. “I don’t care about the points. She’s a great scorer; we all know that. Her passes the last few games have been unbelievable. She threaded the needle on a couple of them, and that’s what I’m talking about. That’s what makes her special.”
Jadyn Brown added nine points for Shawano, while Taylor Kling led Waupaca with nine.
The Hawks have an opportunity to make Nordin’s final season of high school basketball special before she heads to the University of Wisconsin, but Koenig is looking at a memorable season for the team’s other seniors as well.
“That’s the way we do it, and we’ve done it since I’ve been here 14 years,” he said. “We try to make that senior class special. It’s not about one player, one person. It’s about the three seniors this year and what they want and what their goals are, and we rally around them. Last year, it was the other girls that moved on.”
Although the Hawks had only played one conference game before the win over Waupaca, Koenig believes his team could be in the mix for a Bay championship.
“We’re still finding out who we are,” he said. “Winneconne just beat Xavier by one (point), and those two are the cream of the crop this year based on they didn’t lose a lot from last year. We lost three starters. Other players need time to replace them and understand that you just don’t do that overnight. It’s going to take half a season to hopefully get these younger girls up to speed.
“Tonight was huge for us, getting them in, getting some experience. The more calm they are on the court, the more calm they’ll be when they go in the game. As the season goes, we’re going to get to that point. We had a game earlier where we had four of our starters with four fouls. We needed the bench. They keep stepping up, and we’ll be just fine.”
