East Troy sinks 11 threes, ties Whitewater for North lead
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Whitewater's Brooke Trewyn eyes a shot between East Troy's Alee Schahczinski, left, and Bryn Riemer.
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East Troy's Breanna Gaspervich puts up a shot with Whitewater's Sarah Schumacher defending.
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Whitewater's Courtney Samuels puts up a shot under pressure from East Troy's Alicia Oleson.
WHITEWATER — East Troy High girls basketball coach Jeff Brown hasn’t quite figured out the gene pool in the rural town of East Troy.
But he certainly has figured out who has the shooting touch.
The undersized Trojans drained 11 three-pointers on their way to pulling off an impressive 78-73 victory over Whitewater in a Rock Valley North showdown here Thursday evening.
With the victory, East Troy (16-1, 11-1) avenged an early season loss to the Whippets to pull even with Whitewater (15-2,
11-1) in the Rock Valley North.
“Our boys’ team has guys who are pushing 7 feet tall and we have 5-foot-7 girls,” Brown said. “I’m the tallest guy in the gym when we practice, which isn’t real good. We had to try to get it going 100 miles hour and make shots, and we did just that.”
“We had a big sectional playoff game before, but maybe for conference-wise, this was as big of a conference win as we’ve had,” Brown said.
The win was indeed significant for East Troy, which needed a victory over Whitewater to keep its conference title hopes alive.
“The pressure was on them (East Troy) more than it was on us because we didn’t have any conference losses,” Whitewater coach Judy Harms said. “Fortunately, we can still grab a conference championship or a piece of it.”
The undersized Trojans handled the pressure well against the physical Whippets.
Rachel Atchison drained six three-pointers, including four in the first quarter, to help East Troy jump out to a 21-18 lead. Breanna Gaspervich followed Atchison’s lead by drilling three of her five three-pointers in the first half to build the lead to 38-31 at halftime.
Gaspervich and Atchison finished with 33 and 21 points, respectively, which more than cancelled out Whitewater’s size advantage in the paint.
The Trojans up-tempo style had the Whippets on their heels most of the second half. Alicia Oleson’s jumper late in the third gave East Troy its biggest lead of the game,
57-42.
“They (East Troy) shot, from what I heard, over 50 percent,” Harms said. “You don’t even see college women’s teams shoot that well from three, so what are you going to do?”
The frustrated Whippets
finally got a handle on East Troy in the fourth quarter and drew to within 76-72 with 40 seconds to play, but could not get any closer.
Brooke Trewyn scored eight of her team-high 27 points in the fourth quarter to lead Whitewater back into contention.
“My kids played their hearts out, and we knew coming in we couldn’t match East Troy’s speed,” Harms said. “Unfortunately, it got the best of us.”
It’s still too close to call which team will ultimately get the better of the other in the conference race, but the Trojans made the race a lot more interesting Thursday night.
EAST TROY 78, WHITEWATER 73
East Troy (78) – Gaspervich, 10-8-33; Oleson, 3-1-7; Atchison, 6-3-21; Olsen, 3-1-7; Riemer, 2-1-4 ; Schahczinski, 1-1-3; Morris, 0-1-1; Balcerowski, 1-0-2 .Totals: 25-11-78
Whitewater (73)- Trewyn, 9-7-27; Griep, 4-1-9; Maseterson, 2-0-4; Hookstead, 2-0-6; K. Reynolds, 2-1-5; Samuels, 5-2-12; Harty, 4-0-10. Totals: 28-11-73
East Troy 21 17 19 21—78
Whitewater 18 13 16 26—73
Three-point goals—East Troy 11 (Gaspervich 5, Atchison 6), Whitewater 5 (Trewyn 2, Hookstead 2, Harty). Free throws missed—East Troy 16, Whitewater 12. Total fouls—East Troy 20, Whitewater 28. Fouled out—Masterson, Riemer.
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