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WSN15: Girls Basketball Top Moments #8 -- Long winning streaks come to an end at 2013 state tournament

08/02/2018, 3:00pm CDT
By Norbert Durst

The WSN15 series will celebrate the 15th Anniversary of WisSports.net by looking back at the top players, teams, and moments of the past 15 years (2003-2017). 

We begin our WSN15 girls' basketball series with the Top 15 Moments of the WSN Era.

On March 15, 2013 two long winning streaks came to an end at the Resch Center in Green Bay. 

East Troy ended Neillsville's 54-game winning streak in a Division 3 state semifinal and later that day New Berlin Eisenhower snapped New London's 68-game winning streak. 

In the first of the two, East Troy trailed by four points at the break before outscoring defending D4 state champion Neillsville 21-8 in the third quarter before earning a 68-56 victory.

Breanna Gaspervich and Rachel Atchison led the way for coach Jeff Brown and the Trojans, finishing with 25 and 19 points, respectively. 

Atchison went 6-for-12 from behind the arc which is tied for the most three-pointers made in a game in state tournament history. In the Trojans' loss to Kewaunee in the D3 title game, Rachel made three more and holds the mark for most three-pointers made in Division 3 state tournament history with nine. 

Jenny Lindner, who went on to score 1,693 points at UW-Milwaukee, finished with a game-high 26 points for coach John Gaier and the Warriors. Jenny also went 13 of 15 from the free throw line.

Later that day, in the second game of the Division 2 state semifinals, New Berlin Eisenhower erased an early 15-point deficit to beat New London, the two-time defending D2 state champions, 48-47. 

After trailing 21-6 with 5:50 left in the second quarter, New Berlin Eisenhower would go on a 17-0 run to take a 23-21 lead with 4:34 remaining in the third quarter. 

The rest of the second half featured eight more lead changes and was tied on nine other occasions, and neither team led by more than four points in the fourth quarter. That four-point lead was by New London after Brenna Heise knocked down a pair of free throws with 1:13 remaining. 

The teams traded baskets and free throws until New London was up by one point with 25 seconds to go. Junior Amber Pethke had an open layup to give her team some breathing room, but couldn't covert. However, Eisenhower turned the ball over on an out of bounds throw-in, and New London took a 2 point lead with 17 seconds left when Mickey Rolland hit one of two free throws.

Erin Ganzke's three-point play with 7.1 seconds left gave the Lions the lead and it turned into the game-winner after New London wasn't able to convert on a shot with 0.8 seconds remaining, giving New Berlin Eisenhower the 48-47 victory

Like East Troy, New Berlin Eisenhower would fall in the championship game. The Lions dropped a 42-33 contest against Notre Dame in the D2 title game. 

Jenny Weiland, who went on to play at Winona State, tallied a team-high 17 points and Ganzke netted a career-high 16 points for coach Gary Schmidt and the Lions. 

Heise, who went on to score over 1,000 points at Michigan Tech, finished with a game-high 19 points for New London and coach Andrea Flease. 

Tag(s): News Archive  GBB News  Norbert Durst  WSN15