Regional loss ends Red Hawk girls’ season

For the entirety of the 2023-24 season, the Gale-Ettrick-Trempealeau girls basketball team has talked about taking each game one possession at a time.

The Red Hawks want to focus on making each offensive opportunity a useful one instead of hurrying to get a shot off to shorten a deficit in a game. 

In last Tuesday’s regional quarterfinal playoff game against Adams-Friendship, it appeared that G-E-T focused on that message — after conceding an early 8-0 lead the Red Hawks pushed back, also cutting into a 17-point disadvantage late in the second half before ending their season with a 55-39 loss.

“We talk about one possession at a time and that’s kind of been our motto all year,” G-E-T coach John Schmidtknecht said. “We’ve dug ourselves in some holes early, but if we take one possession at a time, get a good shot, we believe that if we keep doing that we can claw back into it.”

The eighth-seeded Red Hawks trailed by seven points at halftime, and the visiting ninth-seeded Green Devils (6-19) opened the second half on a 15-5 run to extend their lead to 17.

Again G-E-T cut into the deficit, and a Halene DeJager three-pointer with eight minutes left in the game reduced the gap to seven for the hosts. Adams-Friendship held on to win, but Schmidtknecht said he liked the response from his team.

“We made a good run there. Did we run out of steam at the end? Maybe, but we have a lot of fighters on this team and we’re proud of the way they reacted.”

DeJager led G-E-T with a 10-point night. Evelyn Shaw scored a contest-best 18 points for the Green Devils, whom also got 13 points from Maya Klutzier.

Senior Kaylee Hauge added six points for G-E-T and contributed a team-high eight rebounds.

Schmidtknecht and G-E-T end the year with a 5-20 record. The first-year coach said his team improved throughout the season, and he thinks that growth could show in coming years.

“I think there’s good things to come. They have a hard work ethic and they see that light and want to work hard and improve every day,” he said.

“I think we’re going to have some good seasons going forward. We just have to go through the growing pains, a bit of a rebuild. I’m proud of how the seniors handled it, took the team under their wings and pushed everybody to be better every day.”

G-E-T (field goals/attempts-free throws/attempts-rebounds-fouls-points) — Higgins 1/1-0/0-1-0-3; Hauge 2/6-2/6-8-3-6; Brantner 3/12-0/0-4-1-6; Filla 0/5-0/0-1-4-0; DeJager 3/8-2/2-7-2-10; Johnson 3/11-0/4-6-5-6; Grams 0/0-0/1-3-1-0; Bakeberg 0/0-1/2-3-1-1; James 1/4-1/2-3-0-3; Simmons 2/5-0/0-4-2-4.