With an early sprint to an 18 – 5 advantage in the first half Saturday, as the Panthers hosted the Osceola Girls’ Basketball team, it looked like an offensive juggernaut of a day. However, Osceola recovered to a 29-17 halftime deficit and the game settled into a steady, if foul-plagued, competitive game. After the Panthers stretched their lead to 39 – 19 with 12:00 to play, the visitors clawed back into the game by going on a 10-0 run before an Autumn Earney transition basket stemmed the tide.

Molly Janke and Brianna Giese combined to go 9 of 12 from the free-throw line down the stretch to keep Osceola at bay, closing out a 54 – 41 victory for the Panthers. Mallory Johnson and Hattie Fox kept the Chieftains in the game in the second half, scoring 16 of their 24 points. Johnson led her squad with 15 points, 11 of which came from her 11-16 day at the free throw line. Fox was close behind with 11, while Arial Branum tallied 5.

“It was a very choppy game, I guess I’d call it,” stated Head Coach Jason Janke after the game included 49 fouls and 65 free throws. “It was just difficult for us to find any rhythm in the game and I’m sure Mike (Osceola Coach Haase) would say the same. It was maybe a typical after Holiday Break game where both teams just forced some things and apparently, didn’t get in great defensive position in many cases.”

Molly Janke led the Panthers with 22 points and 19 rebounds, while Autumn Earney was right in the mix with 15 points and six rebounds. Ava Brookshaw nearly grabbed a double- double, with10 rebounds and tallied 8 points. Hayley Bach was also a demon on the boards, snaring 7 rebounds to go with her 5 points.

When asked about some keys to the Panthers’ win, Coach Janke pointed directly to his team’s rebounding and the standout defensive work of Bach, Giese, Kaitlyn Peterson and Lily Puhrmann.

“Certainly, Molly did a nice job on the boards, and that got a little contagious when you look at her, Ava and Hayley nearly getting 40 rebounds among them, and that is really outstanding. What you have to really appreciate as well, is the individual defense that Lily, Brianna, Hayley and Kaitlyn played on their two leading scorers (Fox & Johnson). Even though both of them did reach double figures, we made them work extremely hard to get those points and never really let them get going. The 10-0 run we gave up was as much us playing some poor offense rather than poor defense. We were happy with our effort, a much-improved rebounding/defensive game after a less than acceptable game in that capacity against New Richmond.”

The Panthers are on the road this week, taking on Big Rivers Conference defending champions, River Falls on January 12 and Middle Border-leading Prescott on Friday.