By Murray Gleffe
Correspondent
DE PERE — The West De Pere girls’ basketball team used a 17-2 run to start the second half and coasted to a 65-33 Bay Conference victory over Seymour Dec. 1 at West De Pere High School.
“We came out with a lot more energy in the second half and built the lead back up,” said West De Pere head coach Chris Abaray. “We started being more aggressive in the paint, and it showed with a lot more touches and easy finishes around the basket.”
Alexa Thomson led the Phantoms (2-0 overall) with 14 points, while Rebekah Buboltz and Casey Jepson chipped in with 11 and 10, respectively.
Seymour (0-3) was paced by Heather Krause’s 8 points.
West De Pere jumped out to a 12-0 lead behind the tandem of Thomson and Jepson with their inside-out game.
It took the Thunder nearly eight minutes before they connected on their first field goal of the game.
Up 14, the Phantoms turned the ball over five times in six possessions and started forcing bad shots against Seymour’s 2-3 matchup zone.
The sloppy play was part of West De Pere’s 14 first-half turnovers.
The Thunder cut the margin to 22-14 after Krause hit a floater from beyond the free-throw line.
“We were forcing the issue a bit midway through the first half,” Abaray said. “The lead didn’t feel as big as it was with the way we were playing. Seymour baited us into taking deep shots instead of running our offense. They owned all the 50-50 balls and outhustled us. All the credit goes to them.”
The Phantoms scored the final four points to take a 26-14 lead into intermission.
Whatever was said at the break seemed to spark West De Pere.
Thomson hit a long deuce to start the second half, and Jaci Mannisto hit a 23-foot triple to extend the margin to 17.
When it was all said and done, the Phantoms had gone on a blistering 29-6 spurt to go up 35 with 6:57 remaining in the game.
“Our trap on the sidelines gave us a spark during the second-half run,” added Abaray. “It provided us with lots of fast-break points off turnovers or steals. We had another level of defensive intensity in the second half, and it showed in the result.”
Box score
Seymour: 14, 19 — 33
West De Pere: 26, 39 — 65
Thunder: Krause 8, VandenLangenberg 6, Powless 5, S. Nieland 5, B. Nieland 4, Hilbert 3, Volz 2.
Phantoms: Thomson 14, Buboltz 11, Jepson 10, Baeten 7, Waukau 7, Mannisto 4, Konop 4, Vogels 3, Karchinski 3, Wilke 2.