PATIENCE PYAN and TINA L. SCOTT
On Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2023, the Merrill Girls Basketball Team hosted Antigo for a non-conference match-up. The game was pretty close for the majority of the first half, and the Bluejays contained the lead without giving it up once. After the Red Robin’s went on a little run towards the end of the half, the Bluejays answered with a little streak of their own and went into halftime up 34-16.
Coming out of the half, it took a little over four minutes for either team to score. It was some more back and forth for a while before Antigo inched their way back into the game, going on a 13-2 run, to make it a 10-point game, 57-47. As the game wound down, the Antigo girls got it within four points, but just couldn’t pull it off, and the Bluejays held on for the win. The Lady Jays were led by Mia Ott (24 pts, 7 reb, 3 ast), Alayna Pozorski (11 pts, 6 ast, 7 stl), and Maddy Ott (10 pts, 5 reb, 1 stl).
Box Score
Antigo 61 @ Merrill 66
On Jan. 20, the Lady Jays traveled to Marshfield for a conference match-up. This game both teams came out slow, and the scores went back and forth for a while, but the Bluejays never took the lead, only tied it up. Towards the end of the second half, the Marshfield Tigers went on a 10-0 run to go up 19-10, and the Bluejays inched back a little bit so that they were down by only 3, 16-19, at the end of the half.
Neither team scored for the first quarter of the second half, both teams coming out slow again. Marshfield then went on another run of 12-0 to put the Bluejays down a little, the score now being 31-16, and once again the Bluejays came back going on a 11-0 run, making it 27-31 late in the second half.
However, the Bluejays couldn’t get over that hump and fell apart again, going down 27-41, and ended up losing 30-47.
The Merrill girls struggled shooting inside the arc, as they didn’t make a two-point field goal the entire game. All of their points came from three-pointers and free throws. The girls had 24 turnovers, and the Tigers scored 28 points off those turnovers.
Merrill Girls were led by Mia Ott (13 pts, 4 reb, 2 stl), Maddie Drew (9 pts, 1 reb), and Alayna Pozorski (7 pts, 4 reb, 2 ast).
Box Score
Merrill 30 @ Marshfield 47