Published: Dec. 19, 2015
Suns rise on emotional night
East knocks off West
By NICHOLAS DETTMANN
Daily News
When Travis Graf was hired as the West Bend East girls
basketball coach, one of the first people to welcome him to the community was
West Bend West coach Bernie McCarthy.
“It hasn’t been that long since I was a new coach here,”
McCarthy said. McCarthy is in his third season as the Spartans coach.
“I thought he should get some support,” McCarthy said. “He
was coming into a tough situation.”
Graf was thankful for that. But he also knew the East-West
game was a rivalry game — and a game he had to win.
“I appreciate Bernie probably as much as anybody in West
Bend,” Graf said. “When I got here, he really made me feel welcome. He went out
of his to be really gracious to me. Bernie’s just a class guy.
“But I wanted to beat him tonight.”
Hannah Knop scored a game-high 19 points to lead the Suns to
a 56-39 victory over the Spartans on Friday night in an emotional game on and
off the court.
On the court, it was the usual nerves and excitement for an
East-West game.
Off the court, it was emotional because it was the first
fundraiser for the newly established Rick Riehl Memorial Scholarship.
Riehl, a former East girls basketball coach who led the Suns
to the 1984 state championship, died Nov. 29 from a rare brain disease. He was
67. In 13 seasons as East’s girls coach, he was 178-101.
Before the game, Riehl’s family spoke and applauded the West
Bend community for their support.
“We are so pleased to be here,” said Donna Riehl, Rick’s
widow. “Thank you.”
With the help of the Riehl fundraiser, the stands were about
three-quarters full, one of the largest crowds for an East or West girls
basketball game in recent memory.
“I think there was a lot of adrenaline,” Knop said.
“Obviously with the amount of people here to honor Rick Riehl, it was an
amazing environment.”
With all the hoopla surrounding the game, it was no surprise
each team struggled early. But once they got into the flow of the game, the
play picked up and turned into an entertaining game.
West’s Alex Rondorf scored the game’s first basket — a
3-pointer — about three minutes in to take a 3-0 lead.
Later, Knop made a 3-pointer to give the Suns a 7-4 lead,
and they didn’t trail the rest of the game.
East controlled a lot of facets of the game, including
defense and rebounding on both ends of the floor. However, Graf believed his
team could’ve shot better in the half.
Because of that, East only 30-20 at halftime, which was fine
by West.
“I think anytime with the team that I have, you have Alex
(Rondorf), you have Marie (Ferris), anytime you’re within 10 points, that’s a
doable margin,” McCarthy said. “We were right there.”
West got the first basket of the second half to cut the
deficit to 30-22. But East scored the next six points to take a 36-22 lead and
from there, West couldn’t get the deficit to less than 10 points.
Mired in foul trouble in the first half, East’s Katelyn
Zettler entered the second half with about 12 minutes remaining and found her
shot.
The senior scored 10 points in the second half on her way to
16 points for the game. She made a 3-pointer with less than four minutes
remaining to make it 52-34.
“I thought she played real well,” Graf said of Zettler. “She
came out in the second half, she played smart, she played confident.”
Graf was excited by the contributions up and down his bench.
Amy Daley had eight points and 13 rebounds. Auburn Larson had six points and
six rebounds, and Gabby Bland had six rebounds.
East outrebounded West, 49-35. The Suns had four players
with at least six rebounds.
Graf also praised the defensive effort by Ciara Dricken.
West was led by Alex Rondorf’s 13 points — 10 in the first
half. A 3-pointer with less than two minutes remaining in the second half was
the only points Rondorf scored in the half.
Prior to the shot, West missed 14 straight 3-pointers.
“That girl may be the best defender in the conference,” Graf
said of Dricken. “I don’t think anybody’s going to know it either. You watch
her on defense, they can’t get a step on her because she’s just too fast.”
It is East’s seventh straight victory in the series.
“We needed the win,” Graf said. “I wanted to get back to
.500. We’re 2-3 in conference play. I still think we can be even better.
“I feel like if we put 36 minutes together the way we’re
capable, somebody’s going to get scorched because I know what we have in us,”
Graf said.
East won the freshman game, 37-21, while West won the junior
varsity game, 34-32.
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