Red Hawks’ postseason run ends in regional semifinal


            Gale-Ettrick-Trempealeau senior Lindsey Lettner rolled in a layup in a regional semifinal playoff win over Black River Falls at G-E-T High School last Wednesday. (Times photograph by Benjamin Pierce)

The 2021-22 basketball season has come to an end for the Gale-Ettrick-Trempealeau High School girls basketball team.

A 55-27 regional semifinal loss at Altoona last Friday ended the Red Hawks’ campaign, a game that was preceded by a regional semifinal win over Black River Falls on Wednesday. No further information from the Altoona game was reported to the Times.

G-E-T finishes the season with a 12-14 record in a year that was led by a group of eight seniors.

G-E-T 66 BR Falls 37

Minutes after a WIAA first round playoff game had begun last Wednesday at G-E-T High School, the hosts had their best player watching from the bench.

Senior Lindsey Lettner committed a pair of fouls minutes into the game, and coach Louis Hurd made the decision to pull her from the floor. 

When she stepped back onto the floor midway through the half, she wasted no time getting reacquainted with the scoreboard — Lettner scored 21 points in the first half and finished the game with 29, leading the Red Hawks to a 66-37 win.

It was an effort that Hurd has come to expect from Lettner over the years, and he applauded the senior’s response to early adversity.

“She’s a competitor. I took her out and just said ‘Hey, be ready when you’re coming back in.’ ... I thought she handled it really well,” Hurd told the Times after the game. “She came back and hit some shots and got us into what we do.”

Lettner’s biggest threat on Wednesday was her shot, something Hurd said has continued to grow for Lettner since she was a freshman.

“She can really find her shot, and she can find a variety of ways to get open. … just really finding a lot of different ways to score, it’s really served her well,” Hurd said.

Plenty of other seniors pulled their weight on offense Wednesday, too, as a deep Aleah Hunter 2-pointer spread the Red Hawks’ lead early, and a quick shot inside from Kylie Schmitz with about six minutes left in the half combined with another from Kayli Bratberg moments later pushed the lead to 15.

Schmitz finished with 14 points.

Black River Falls opened the second half on a 6-2 run, cutting into G-E-T’s 23-point halftime lead before a barrage of shots from numerous G-E-T players spread the score again. Hurd thought his team got back to “good, clean” basketball late to earn the win.

“We’re capable of playing at a better pace, we’re capable of finishing some shots, and that was the talk at halftime,” he said. “It wasn’t that we were getting bad shots, but we got to finish.”

G-E-T (field goals-free throws/free throws missed-fouls-points)—Becker 0-0/0-1-0, Lettner 9-4/6-3-29, Braunreiter 1-0/0-0-3, Hunter 1-1/2-3-4, A. Bratberg 1-0/0-0-3, K. Bratberg 2-0/0-3-4, Schmitz 5-2/2-1-14, O’Neill 2-0/2-1-5, Nelson 1-0/0-1-2, Kokott 1-0/1-1-2.

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