By Greg Bates
Correspondent
GREEN BAY – Back-to-back state titles is still a possibility.
The Bay Port girls’ basketball team went from a six-point halftime lead over Kimberly to a 20-point advantage in a matter of seven minutes.
The Pirates kept shooting well the rest of the game and cruised to a 56-34 victory in a WIAA Division 1 sectional final March 7 at Green Bay West High School.
The win sends Bay Port to the state semifinals, where it’s two wins away from another state championship.
“It feels amazing,” said Bay Port’s Emma Krueger, who scored a game-high 18 points and grabbed 10 rebounds. “I can’t even describe it.”
Kimberly, the No. 2 seed and No. 7-ranked team in the state in Division 1, shot 4-for-30 (13.3%) in the first half and 11-for-71 (15.5%) for the game.
Top-seeded Bay Port, ranked No. 4, was patient on offense and took advantage of its opportunities, shooting 19-for-41 (46.3%).
“We knew we had to play our best defense, and we knew they would shoot a lot of threes,” Krueger said. “We had to fight and close out on them.”
“We didn’t shoot well,” Kimberly coach Troy Cullen said. “We didn’t make layups, and talking after the game, it’s got very little to do with what Bay Port did – we just didn’t make any shots.”
Bay Port head coach Kati Coleman said she didn’t expect to come in and blow out one of the best teams in the state.
“We had a handful of games where we were up and down,” she said. “The end of our season, it wasn’t how we were playing at the beginning of the season. So, to come out and play like this, is definitely for me not expected. But it’s one I knew the girls had in them. They were capable of it, and I this showed.”
It was a struggle offensively early for both schools.
Kimberly’s Maddy Schreiber scored to give her team a 5-4 advantage, but Bay Port answered with an 8-0 run, capped by Sophie Vandeyacht with back-to-back shots, as the Pirates led 12-5 with 6:13 to play in the opening half.
Bay Port took its biggest lead, nine, as Jacki Szelagowski converted a basket, but Kimberly got a hoop with 12 seconds to play in the opening half to cut its deficit to 19-13.
Coleman had a straight-forward message for her team at halftime.
“I told them, ‘Play like this is your last game,’” she said. “Obviously, I didn’t want that to come true. But the seniors on this team, they’ve been there in soccer. Three of them have been to state the last three years, so they know what this means. And a lot of them, they’re not ready to be done playing with each other. They want a whole other week.”
Bay Port (24-2) started the second half where it left off, as Mady Draak hit her first shot of the game to give the Pirates a 25-16 lead.
Draak – who finished with 12 points and 15 rebounds – continued her offensive prowess, scoring nine points during an 18-4 run to give Bay Port a 40-20 advantage.
Kimberly (20-5) scored the next five points, but Bay Port went on an 11-2 run to all but end the game at 51-27 with 4:37 remaining.
Bay Port held University of Wisconsin-Green Bay recruit Schreiber to four field goals and 12 points.
To get back to state wasn’t easy for Bay Port.
It lost a key piece to the cog five games into the season when forward Emma Nagel tore the PCL in her right knee.
Add to the fact Bay Port had a target on its back every game as the defending state champs and lost two of its final three regular-season games, it was an uphill climb for the Pirates.
“Emma Nagel is a great athlete, but it says a lot about the other girls we have on the team,” Coleman said. “She’s not our whole team, and I think that’s what helped us is that she’s not a 20-point scorer. She’s going to get us 10-plus boards a game; she’s going to get us here and there. But we don’t have to rely directly on her, and I think that showed. And I think the other thing is that a handful of girls that might have not stepped up, stepped up right away.”