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Bay Port wins battle of conference favorites

By Rich Palzewic
Sports Editor


SUAMICO – The Bay Port girls’ basketball team delivered an early message in the Fox River Classic Conference race.

The Pirates, the WIAA Division 1 defending state champs, used balanced scoring and sound defense to post a 61-51 victory over Green Bay Preble at Bay Port High School Dec. 6.

The Pirates (3-0 overall, 1-0 FRCC) and the Hornets (1-2, 0-1) are expected to be two of the top teams in the conference.

Preble gave Bay Port its only loss of the season last year.

“We need to move forward,” said Bay Port head coach Kati Coleman. “It’s nice to win your first conference game of the season against a great team. We made a handful of mental mistakes, and we need to correct those.”

The Pirates held Preble’s high-powered duo of Kendall Renard and Carley Duffney to a combined 25 points.

The senior Renard, a Division I commit to UW-Green Bay, scored six points, while the junior Duffney, a verbal commit to Division I South Dakota, ended with 19.

“When you play Preble, you have to contain one of their two big players,” Coleman said. “If they both score 20-plus points in a game, they’re going to win 99.9 percent of those games. You have to pick your battles.”

Mady Draak, a Division II commit to Michigan Tech, had a strong game with her 12 points and six rebounds for Bay Port.

“Mady played extremely well in the second game of the season against New Berlin Eisenhower, too,” said Coleman. “That was her coming-out game. This is the Mady we’ve expected to see in the last three years. It’s good for her confidence and for the team.”

Draak scored six points in each half and made life difficult for Renard in the post.

“We wanted to come out with a lot of energy this year, knowing they beat us on our home court last season,” Draak said. “Kendall and I are Purple Aces teammates on our summer AAU team, so we know each other well. She’s a talented player and fun to play against. On the court, I’ll do whatever I need to do, but after the game, it’s all good.”

Bay Port sophomore Emma Krueger scored six consecutive points midway through the first half for a 14-10 lead.

The Pirates closed out the first 18 minutes of the game on a 15-6 run to take a 29-16 lead at halftime.

The Renard/Duffney duo scored only eight points combined before intermission.

“We had a tough time scoring early in the game,” said Preble head coach Jim Doell. “We got good looks, but we couldn’t knock them down. We had players who had some open shots, but they lacked some confidence in shooting. Bay Port sagged defensively and made it difficult for us in the post. We gained some confidence in the second half – we will learn from this.”

The Pirates went on a 14-2 run to start the second half to increase their lead to 43-19.

The Hornets responded with their own 12-0 run, paced by Ella Bialkowski’s eight points to pull within 12.

Emma Nagel led Bay Port with 14 points and added seven rebounds and five assists.

McKenzie Johnson scored 12 points on four three-pointers, and Alaina Abel and Krueger contributed nine points.

Bialkowski ended with 13 points for Preble.

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