There’s no telling which Ellsworth Panthers team is going to show up on any given night and for Ellsworth head coach Jason Janke, that’s part of the problem.

The Lady Panthers have had a couple of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde performances offensively this season. Four times Ellsworth has scored at least 60 points in a game this year. However, the Panthers have also been held to fewer than 40 points five times, one of which was the 42-32 loss at home against Baldwin-Woodville on Thursday, Feb. 2.

“We’re one of those teams offensively that’s real bipolar,” Janke said after the loss. “We had a good night and a really nice balance the other night (against Amery). Now tonight we can’t get any consistent scoring out of anybody. When you can target (Molly) like that, any team is easy to defend.”

Ellsworth’s 32-point performance against the Blackhawks was a season-low and saw only one player reach double figures. Ellsworth junior Molly Janke finished with 15 points, six rebounds and two assists. Janke recorded four makes from the floor while the rest of the Ellsworth roster combined for just five made field goals the entire night.

The Panthers finished the game shooting 23% from the field including just 2-13 from beyond the three-point line. Ellsworth junior Ava Brookshaw finished as the second-leading scorer with seven points and four rebounds in the loss. For coach Janke, it simply boiled down to missing too many shots.

“I think we just had a bad night shooting and we didn’t play very good offense,” Jason Janke said. “We’ve done that against a few different teams. I don’t think it’s anything special to Baldwin. We didn’t make shots, and I’ll leave it at that.”

Ellsworth is going to have to find more offensive consistency in the coming week, as the Panthers are slated to travel to Somerset on Tuesday to play the 15-5 Spartans. Then Ellsworth heads to Osceola on Thursday night to square off against the Chieftains and senior point guard Hattie Fox, who is one of the best players in the conference and averages just over 18 points per contest.

“We’ve got a really tough Tuesday and Thursday with going to Somerset and Osceola,” Jason Janke said. “That’s not a really fun week and it’s tough. It’s going to be tough to split, let alone get two.”

After the lackluster offensive performance at home against Baldwin-Woodville on Thursday night, Ellsworth bounced back with a 54-37 victory on the road against Black River Falls on Saturday, Feb. 4.

Ellsworth gave up a three-pointer on the opening possession but quickly responded, as Molly Janke buried a deep three on the ensuing possession. The Panthers never looked back, as they outscored Black River Falls 25-8 the rest of the first half.

Ellsworth uncharacteristically struggled to make free throws in the second half, shooting just 4-12 from the stripe, but eventually pulled away with a career-high 13-point performance from junior forward Kayla Kressin.

After a home game against Baldwin-Woodville in which only one player reached double figures, Ellsworth showed scoring balance against Black River Falls. The Panthers had six different players make a field goal in the first half and three players finished with 10 or more points.

Molly Janke had 15 points, 10 rebounds, seven assists and four steals, while Kressin had 13 points and also grabbed nine rebounds. Junior Maria Harrington tallied 10 points and played her typical stellar defense. Sophomore Morgan Halverson was also a force defensively, as she grabbed six boards and blocked three shots in the win.

Junior Ava Brookshaw had eight points and senior Ashlyn Townsend had six in the balanced scoring night. Coach Jason Janke spoke about the offensive efficiency on Saturday night.

“We were very happy with Kayla’s night, she really stepped up and converted some shots inside and that was critical,” Janke said. “They played a box-n-one on Molly all night, and her seven assists along with Kayla, Maria and Ava stepping up their scoring were definite positives on the evening.”

While Black River Falls went into the game with a woeful 1-16 overall record, it easily could have been a trap game for Jason Janke’s Panthers. The more than two-hour bus ride, in addition to playing three games in a week could have easily brought fatigue and disinterest into play. He spoke about some of the disadvantages that all teams eventually face during the season.

“It’s a tough ask to play three games in a week,” Janke said. “And we were coming off a challenging week previously as well, so we really have had only one practice to prepare for each team over the past two weeks. I think that caught up with us tonight. We didn’t know a lot about them, they had no statistics shared on Wissports and we don’t get much coverage of their league so we were flying blind a little at times tonight.”

With the win, Ellsworth improved to 12-8 overall and remained 5-5 in Middle Border Conference play. The Panthers will be back in action on the road against Somerset on Tuesday, Feb. 7. Tip-off for that game is slated for 7 p.m.

Ellsworth junior Molly Janke takes a deep wing three-pointer late in the second half during the home game against Baldwin-Woodville on Thursday night. Janke finished with a team-high 15 points. Photo by Reagan Hoverman