By Josh Staloch
Correspondent
PULASKI – The Pulaski girls’ basketball team has been struggling to find its rhythm on offense this season.
Thursday night’s home game against Ashwaubenon didn’t see the Red Raiders put up a ton of points, but their defense showed up in a 36-24 victory.
“We have a few decent shooters, but we’re struggling to shoot the basketball right now,” said Pulaski head coach Doug McElrone. “We were more successful tonight feeding the post than we were shooting from the outside. We didn’t think that would be something we’d have to do this year, but we’ve had to switch things up because we’re not shooting it the way we’d like to be.”
Cold shooting aside, the Red Raiders (3-2 overall) jumped out to a 7-0 lead, capped by a fast-break layup from Sheridan Flauger.
Pulaski never looked back from there, which was a sharp contrast in performance from two days prior, when it let an early 10-point lead slip away in a loss to Bay Port.
Ashlyn Szymanski was particularly busy on the floor for Pulaski.
A big part of her team’s early lead, the 5-foot-7 guard put away nine points in the first half.
Flauger added six of her own in the first half, as the home team went into the break up 19-8.
The first-half highlights were few and far between for Ashwaubenon (0-2), but Nyia Marohl did a good job of getting her team’s first field goal in the books on a nice score down low off of a feed from Madyson Rothe.
Flauger and Szymanski hit back-to-back 3-pointers midway through the second half to essentially put the game out of reach at 30-12.
With 12-for-48 shooting overall and 8-for-24 from beyond the arc, McElrone said his team will have to improve its shooting to stay among the top teams in the Fox River Classic Conference.
“That kind of scoring isn’t going to be enough with what we’ve got coming up,” McElrone said. “We’re going to play teams like De Pere and Notre Dame Academy. We need to find our rhythm offensively and be able to put up 50 or 60 points. If we can do that, I like our chances against anybody.”