By Rich Palzewic
Sports Editor
GREEN BAY – For the first time since 2016, the Notre Dame Academy girls’ basketball team will be playing in the WIAA state tournament.
The Tritons, the top-ranked Division 2 team in the state, posted a 70-38 victory over Freedom Feb. 20 in the sectional final.
Notre Dame (26-1) will open state tournament play Saturday, Feb. 27, against No. 4 seed Onalaska (17-3) at 9:05 a.m. at the La Crosse Center in Lacrosse.
The other semifinal will feature No. 2 New Berlin Eisenhower (24-4) versus No. 3 Reedsburg (19-1) at 12:25 p.m.
The winners of the two semifinal games will play later in the day at 6:35 p.m. for the title.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the WIAA moved the state tournament from its normal place (Resch Center in Green Bay) to two different venues – the La Crosse Center and Menominee Nation Arena in Oshkosh.
It had also announced both state games for each division would be played on the same day.
“Of course, we’d love to be playing in front of our home crowd, sleep in our own beds and not have to travel almost four hours for state,” said Notre Dame head coach Sara Rohde. “But, maybe if you’re playing in your home area, you don’t get the entire state experience. By us having to play in La Crosse, our girls can enjoy a bus trip with one another and experience a new venue.”
Rohde also said it shouldn’t bother her team to potentially play two games in one day.
“Our team is well conditioned and deep,” she said. “If we are fortunate enough to win our semifinal game, we’ll have good rest until the championship game. It’s the same for all teams, so I don’t see it being a factor.”
This marks the fifth time to state for Rohde in her 10 seasons as Notre Dame coach.
She won state titles in 2013 and ’14.
“It’s an amazing feeling to get back,” she said. “The girls worked hard for this, and they deserve every minute of it. We have a nice blend of veteran players and young talent.”
Notre Dame, winners of 24 games in a row, won its four playoff games by an average of 43 points per game.
All four games were at home.
After winning their first two games of the regular season, the Tritons lost to Division 1 Kimberly (65-57) Dec. 5 but haven’t lost since.
“People might look at the scores of the games and think we didn’t face any adversity,” said Rohde. “We did have a few games where we got into early foul trouble. During our last game at De Pere, it was closer at halftime, and we trailed in the second half. That was a good game for us to come back and fight through it. We’ve had times we could have gotten nervous and panic, but we didn’t.”
Rohde said this is quite possibly her deepest and best team ever.
“This team is athletic, fast and shares the ball well,” she said. “It’s similar to the 2014 state team. We can go seven or eight girls deep on our bench. We were guard-heavy in 2014, but I think we have a deeper post-presence this season. It could be the best team we’ve had at Notre Dame.”
Sammy Opichka, a Division I commit to the University of St. Thomas and the Fox River Classic Conference Player of the Year leads the Tritons with 18 points per game.
Gracie Grzesk (12), Sarah Hardwick (11.6), Georgia Gregoire (9) and Charley Apple (8.6) have also had strong years offensively.