Spartans’ defense sets the tone
Greendale — Few can appreciate how far Martin Luther’s girls basketball program has come better than senior Emily Hafemann.
Three years ago she was a freshman on a team that finished sixth in the Metro Classic with a 6-10 mark. The next year the Spartans climbed to fourth in the standings with an 8-8 record and last season they were second at 13-3.
This season is shaping up to be their year.
On Tuesday, Martin Luther won its 11th straight game, defeating two-time defending conference champion Kenosha St. Joseph, 54-48, thanks to what has become a customary balanced effort on the offensive end and a defensive assault that prevented the Lancers from getting into their offense consistently in the
second half.
“This is the first time our four seniors have beaten St. Joes,” Hafemann said. “It’s just a big steppingstone to know that we can play with all these top-caliber teams.”
Hafemann, the team’s sharp-shooting guard, finished with a team-high 17 points for Martin Luther, which is ranked 10th in the area by the Journal Sentinel. Sophomore guard/forward Emma Kallas and senior guard Grace Amling added 12 points each to help the Spartans improve to 12-1 overall and 8-0 in the league.
St. Joseph got 21 points from McDonald’s AllAmerican Sidney Cooks. The 6-foot-4 forward had a hand in the team’s final 11 points.
All of them came with the Lancers playing catch-up. A run of six turnovers during a 3-minute stretch that started with 13 minutes left in the game set the tone for the rest of the contest.
Martin Luther went from being down by four points early in the second half to leading, 39-35, with about 10 minutes left in the game. From there it gradually pulled away as St. Joseph struggled to get into its offense.
The Lancers had 12 turnovers in the second half.
“We talk about it all the time. We want defense to create offense for us and I think our pressure did that for us,” Martin Luther coach Corey Scheel said. “We ran it well.”
Martin Luther led by as many as eight points on a handful of occasions in the second half. In the final 90 seconds, Hafemann hit four straight from the free throw line to help seal the victory.
The loss was a crushing blow to St. Joseph’s chances of defending its title, but coach Lionel Collins headed home feeling good about the process of a team that with the exception of Cooks and senior guard Niara Collins is inexperienced.
In the first half the team went through a 6minute scoreless stretch but still managed a 25-23 halftime lead thanks to a 6-0 run to end the first half.
Cooks, who had 10 points at the half, had a hand in each of those points.
St. Joseph (8-4, 6-2) never had a stretch like that in the second half, but in falling to Martin Luther it lost its third game by single digits. Two of those games — against Martin Luther and Oshkosh Lourdes — came to teams ranked in the state in Division 3 and 4.