January 6, 2021 – West Bend, WI – Two teams, West Bend East and West Bend West happen to share a school and a gymnasium, so an ever present, albeit friendly rivalry set the atmosphere for this game.
Both teams prided themselves on controlling the pace and the boards over the course of the game, which lead to a back-and-forth battle that saw neither team fully capture momentum.
The Suns struck early and managed to take advantage of the Spartans being a bit overzealous as they got into some early foul trouble. However, the Spartans showed great discipline after going into halftime down 21-20, the Spartans readjusted its overall approach and only had two fouls in the second half.
The Suns definitely remained aggressive throughout the entire game, but second half play was marred by fouls and missed second chance opportunities in the offensive zone. Some late game three pointers couldn’t help the Suns close the gap, as the Spartans won by 10 points, 51 – 41.
The Spartans leading scorer was junior Bella Baker, who had 24 points and went 12 of 17 from the free-throw line. The Suns leading scorer was sophomore Cadence Xiong who put up 12 points.
Post-game Suns’ senior Sarah Stapelfeldt (one of only two seniors on West Bend East), said “the energy was higher then at practice and we took a lot of things from our last game (to improve), but there are some little things to do better.”
Stapelfeldt said the rivalry between West Bend East and West is always fun and competitive. “It’s always interesting playing girls who you go to class with every day.”
Stapelfeldt plans to attend Marquette University, majoring in biomedical sciences and maybe play basketball, if it doesn’t interfere too much with her studies.
West Bend East will get to use its home court when hosting the Hartford Orioles in North Shore Conference game on Friday, January 8 at 7:15 pm.
The Spartans will also have its next game at home against the Cedarburg Bulldogs.
