BIG REDS GET GET BIG BOOST IN SEMI WIN
Second-half offensive explosion favors Chippewa Valley over Fraser in district tournament play
The Fraser Ramblers and Chippewa Valley Big Reds combined to score 38 points in the first half of Wednesday’s district semifinal game at Ford II.
Then, Chippewa Valley went on to score 43 points by themselves in the second half, making five 3-pointers in the stretch, to advance to the district championship with a 63-58 victory.
The low-scoring first half — Chippewa Valley led Fraser 20-18 at the break — fell more into the Ramblers’ interests. They allowed just 33.1 points per game this season, and held Chippewa Valley to 43 points in a win over the Big Reds in January.
So when the game looked like it would be a defensive rock fight, nobody blinked. In fact, considering how they played in the first half, Fraser head coach Rob Fulgenzi was perfectly fine with the two-point deficit.
“First half, we kind of kept it where we wanted to score-wise, but offensively, we were making a lot of mental mistakes too,” Fulgenzi said. “A lot of dropped passes. We looked a little tight, a little nervous. … We felt pretty good where we were at at halftime, and the second half was a whole different ball game in terms of flow of the game.”
Fulgenzi said it: Chippewa Valley more than doubled their first half score in the third. They scored 14 points in the waning minutes of the third quarter thanks to four 3-pointers hit in rapid succession, two apiece by Gracyn Carrier and MyKenzi Harris, and got a runout as time expired. It allowed them to extend their lead from two to seven.
Part of the breakout came thanks to the Big Reds executing their game plan as installed by head coach Jackie Maurer — pound the post, play tough and things will happen — but part of it was as simple as this:
“I think we just locked in,” Maurer said. “Some of my guards, they weren’t going to back down. They were going to compete, and they knew they had to come up and perform and they absolutely did a great job for us.”
Carrier finished with a gamehigh 25 points, scoring in every quarter. Harris didn’t have the same experience — she went into halftime with just two points but exploded in the second half to finish with 20.
“All credit to (Chippewa Valley),” Fulgenzi said. “(Harris) and (Carrier) are great players. They