The lone Denmark fan who stood in the bleachers until his team scored its first point had to wait a long time.
Oconto Falls High School’s girls basketball team scored the opening 17 points of its game Friday night. Denmark didn’t get on the scoreboard until a free throw went down with just 33 seconds left in the first quarter.
That set the tone as Oconto Falls maintained at least a 14-point lead the rest of the game to secure a 46-28 victory at home.
“Last night we kind of had a rough practice, so we redeemed ourselves,” said Oconto Falls guard McKenna Larsen, who scored a game-high 18 points on 7-for-12 shooting. “We came out strong and took it to them right away, and I think that’s what you have to do.”
Oconto Falls (9-1, 5-1 Bay Conference) had plenty of opportunities to bury Denmark, but couldn’t land the decisive blow after going up by as many as 21 points.
“We wanted to jump out of the gates early and set the tone right away,” Oconto Falls coach Mike Kaczmarek said. “The girls did a nice job of that. After that I thought we lost our intensity a little bit. Our goal is to win every quarter and we didn’t do that.”
Oconto Falls and Denmark squared off in a tight game on Dec. 12 when the Panthers won a 48-39 victory. On Friday night, Oconto Falls shot better from the 3-point range, hitting five 3-pointers after going zero for 19 on Dec. 12. The Panthers also attacked the basket stronger on Friday night and pulled down some offensive rebounds.
“The first time we played them we pressed and I think that’s what their game was, driving in and we kind of took that away with our zone,” Larsen said. “I think that really threw them off.”
Denmark (8-4, 4-4 Bay) struggled mightily against Oconto Falls’ 1-3-1 zone.
“That’s our bread and butter,” Kaczmarek said. “The girls are really grasping that defense and getting to where we want to be, but we’ve still got to work. We don’t rebound well out of it. If we can become a good rebounding team out it, that’s going to be a pretty good defense for us.”
The Vikings missed all eight of their shots from the field in the opening quarter and hit just three first-half field goals. Denmark connected on just one 3-pointer all night.
“We missed the open shot,” Denmark coach Kory Fredrikson said. “We took open shots, we just didn’t make them.”
It was a tough task for Denmark to try to climb out of a 17-0 hole – Larsen drained back-to-back 3-pointers in the first 55 seconds.
“It’s impossible. It doesn’t happen,” Fredrikson said about a possible comeback. “They’re a good team. That’s why they were picked to win the Bay by some coaches.”
Carly Lemke finished with 12 points and Liz Manns had eight for Oconto Falls. Jennifer Nehls led the way for Denmark with 10 points.
After tallying 18 first-quarter points, Oconto Falls scored just 28 points the rest of the game.
“We want to play four solid quarters so we build off of it,” Kaczmarek said. “It was a great start, but not near as good as we want to be. We want to keep taking steps forward every day.”
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