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February 9, 2000
MVL girls keep rolling with winBy BOB VARMETTE Journal Sports Writer NEW ULM -- The Sleepy Eye St. Mary's Knights have been a slow-starting team much of the season. Tuesday night, they did it against the wrong team. It took all of six seconds for the Knights to find themselves on the short end of the score. It didn't get any better the rest of the game. The Minnesota Valley Lutheran Chargers led from the opening tip and walked away with a 57-46 Tomahawk Conference win over St. Mary's in girls basketball. "I thought it was a very physical game," St. Mary's coach Bruce Woitas said. "Tonight, it played to their advantage more than it did to ours. We had some opportunities to close the gap, but we just didn't get any offensive flow going." The Chargers were flowing right away. MVL (15-4, 13-2) won the opening tip and flew downcourt with freshman Jessica Merseth getting the ball inside and getting fouled. Merseth -- who finished with a game-high 20 points -- canned the free throw and the Chargers were up 3-0 and in the lead to stay. "I think that play really got us off and going," MVL junior Erin Czer said. "It set the tone for the game. Getting the tip is a way of starting the game out with a bang. It was really a bonus for us." Merseth, who also had a game-high 13 rebounds, scored five points in the first quarter as the Chargers opened up a 23-13 margin on St. Mary's (11-7, 9-6). Fellow junior post Sarah Gronholz scored eight points in the quarter and finished with 10 points. Czer also reached double figures for the Chargers with 11 points. The Knights, who rebounded Friday from a 17-6 deficit after the first quarter to beat Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop, never got their offense going. St. Mary's shot only 16-for-60 (26.7 percent) from the field. St. Mary's rallied on the Thunderbirds by switching to a full-court man press after the slow first quarter Friday. Tuesday, they went to it to start the third quarter, but were never able to disrupt the Chargers' offensive rhythm. "Part of that is the energy required," Woitas said. "We're missing a player. We showed a lot of fatigue. (The press) is a tough thing to do unless you've got 10 people you can put out there consistently." The Knights were without starting forward Melissa Braulick. Sophomore Becky Pelzel started in her place and finished with nine points. The Knights did have opportunities, though, beginning in the second quarter. Gronholz got into foul trouble, picking up her third foul with 7:03 remaining in the first half. She took a seat and didn't play the rest of the second quarter and started the second half on the bench. Merseth made sure the Knights couldn't climb back into the lead. The 5-foot-11 freshman scored eight points in the second quarter as the Chargers dominated inside. "I think it was a physical game," Merseth said. "But that's just preparing us for the future. We need to improve on our blocking out. As a whole, we need to get better on our rebounding." The Knights did win the rebounding battle, outboarding the Chargers 44-42. Nicole Steffl cleared 12 rebounds for St. Mary's in addition to scoring 10 points. Sophomore Ashley Mathiowetz led the Knights with 15 points, but her night was a disaster compared to her 27-point effort against GFW Friday. Mathiowetz shot only 5-for-23 from the field. "To our credit, I thought we played good defense," MVL coach John Barenz said. "We talked, we communicated well. We weren't in a hurry on offense. We were patient and we just gained confidence as the game went on." The Chargers upped their lead in the third quarter to 20 points after going on a 9-1 run to start the second half. Merseth, again, was the focal point, hitting 3-for-4 from the field and scoring seven points. Meanwhile, the Knights continued their ice-cold shooting. St. Mary's shot 3-for-15 from the field in the third quarter and only 9-for-35 in the final two quarters. In the junior varsity game, MVL won, 28-24. St. Mary's will host McLeod West Friday in a Tomahawk Conference game. MVL will travel to Morgan Friday, also for a Tomahawk Conference matchup. ST. MARY'S 13 12 9 12--46 MVL 23 12 15 7--57 ST. MARY'S (46): Mathiowetz 5-23 5-9 15, Steffl 4-8 2-5 10, Schroepfer 1-5 2-2 4, Sprenger 2-6 0-0 4, Moldan 1-9 1-2 3, Pelzel 3-5 3-5 9, Walter 0-0 0-0 0, Fischer 0-1 0-0 0. Totals 16-60 14-25 46. MVL (57): Nelson 0-1 1-4 1, Morgan 2-7 2-2 6, Madson 1-5 0-0 2, Czer 5-11 1-2 11, Gronholz 5-14 0-0 10, Dzwonkowski 1-3 0-0 2, Merseth 9-19 2-3 20, Enter 1-3 3-5 5. Doehling 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 24-63 9-17 57. 3-point goals--St. Mary's 0-4 (Mathiowetz 0-2, Moldan 0-2), MVL 0-2 (Morgan 0-1, Czer 0-1). Fouled out--Morgan. Total fouls--St. Mary's 19, MVL 22. Rebounds--St. Mary's 44 (Steffl 12), MVL 42 (Merseth 13). Turnovers--St. Mary's 22, MVL 19.
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