Two Central Wisconsin Conference-East girls basketball teams heading in opposite directions met for the first of two times this season Dec. 19 in Wittenberg.
When the final buzzer sounded, Wittenberg-Birnamwood had notched its ninth straight win – an 83-14 victory over Amherst – while the Falcons returned home with their third straight loss after starting the season 6-0.
Amherst didn’t score until Alexis Wierzba’s basket with 8:24 remaining in the first half. By then, the Chargers had built a 32-point lead, with 18 of those points coming on four 3-pointers and a pair of 3-point plays.
Wittenberg-Birnamwood took a 56-6 lead into the locker room at halftime with three players already in double figures, as Melaina Granquist and Rory Salvesen scored 18 each and Harper Rogowski added 11.
Granquist added 12 more points in the second half to finish with a game-high 30, while Salvesen chipped in with 26, Brieleigh Ladika connected on five 3-pointers in the second half to finish with 15, and Rogowski added 14.
Coach Nick Mechelke said he isn’t surprised that his team is off to a 9-0 start that includes a 5-0 mark in the CWC-East.
“We play hard and that’s how we practice,” he said. “Every practice, we talk about what we need to do to get better. People say, ‘Well, you’re undefeated, what do you need to work on?’ We find little things, fundamentals to get to the point where we were last year and get over the hump. That’s the ultimate goal. That’s what we want, and that’s what these girls want.”
Mechelke coached the Chargers to a CWC-East championship and an undefeated regular season until they fell to eventual WIAA Division 3 runner-up Xavier 63-45 in a sectional final in March.
Mechelke said he’ll find room for improvement after watching the Amherst game on film.
“It could be a turnover,” he said. “I called a timeout, because our weak-side defense wasn’t really good. There’s always something that a team is going to try to exploit that you can work on.”
Mechelke knew this season’s version of the Chargers had the potential to be special.
“I lost one starter from last year and a couple role players,” he said. “The rest played great minutes, and I knew what we had. Brie Ladika, who had five 3’s, really hasn’t had a shooting game like that. That’s just another person we can count on to make a big shot in a big moment.”
The Chargers have never been to state, but as far as Mechelke is concerned, that’s a long way down the road.
“It’s the next game,” he said. “You can’t look ahead. You can’t have that mentality. We have to look at what we can do to get to that next game. Yes, we want to win conference. Yes, we want to win a regional final. Yes, we want to make it all the way. Who doesn’t? That’s the ultimate goal of any basketball team, but right now, it’s trying to find how we can get better tomorrow.”
The Chargers wrapped up their 2025 schedule Dec. 22 with a nonconference game in Medford and don’t have another game scheduled until they host Iola-Scandinavia on Jan. 9.
“It’s a big break, but we’ll push these girls in practice,” Mechelke said. “We have two more conference games to get to the halfway point, and we’re exactly where we need to be.
“We have some back-to-back games coming up and that’s tough to turn around from,” he said. “We have a hard nonconference schedule and February is playoff time. You have to play good teams and you have to play well.”
