It’s been smooth sailing so far in the Central Wisconsin Conference-East for two area girls basketball teams.
At the same time that Wittenberg-Birnamwood was well on its way to a 56-3 win over Shiocton to improve to 8-0 on the season, Bonduel also stayed perfect in conference play Dec. 12 with a 53-18 victory over Manawa at Little Wolf High School.
The win over the Wolves was Bonduel’s fourth CWC-East win in a row and the Bears’ sixth in seven games.
The first half turned out to be a series of runs. After Bonduel scored the game’s first 11 points, the Wolves responded with eight in a row to cut the deficit to three points, but the Bears went on a 12-0 run and closed the half with a 6-0 run to take a 29-11 lead at the break.
Manawa’s Abby Elmhorst scored the first two points of the second half to cut Bonduel’s lead to 16 points before the Bears used a 17-3 run to go up 46-16.
The Bears held Manawa to seven points in the second half and scored the game’s final seven points.
Cierra Schnell led Bonduel with a game-high 15 points, including 11 in the first half, and Mariah Wondra added 10. Elmhorst led Manawa with nine points.
The win is the fourth CWC-East win in a row for the Bears after Bonduel opened the conference schedule with wins over Weyauwega-Fremont, Iola-Scandinavia and Menominee Nation.
“They’re all big,” coach Jerry Reinke said. “We have enough depth that we can put a lot of pressure on ballhandlers. That helps us quite a bit.”
The Bears started five seniors – Schnell, Wondra, Jayla Reinke, Juliana Jacobs and Allison Zernicke – that helped Bonduel build an early lead.
“It’s always good to get off to a good start,” Reinke said. “We tend to turn the ball over a little more than I like, but we’ve been hanging our hat on our defense.”
Bonduel finished second behind Wittenberg-Birnamwood in last season’s CWC-East standings, and Reinke said his team has work to do if they’re going to contend with the Chargers this season.
“We have a lot of growing to do yet,” he said. “We did lose some good pieces from last year, but our seniors are starting to step up and get into their roles. We have a lot of interchangeable pieces, and kids are still trying to find their way. We don’t really have a dominant scorer, so it’s going to be somebody different every night.
“We’ve been grinding it out in basketball for years and we’ve been very successful. That helps the program.”
