Milaca Advances to Section Semi Final, with Win Over Royalton

The Lady Wolves played Royalton on Saturday.

This game was a rematch of the semi final last year between these two teams.

The Wolves this year came in as the 1 seed and looked to get back to the section semi final.

This game wound up being a defensive battle, but early on Milaca seemed to control the pace. While their defense played really solid, the offense struggled alittle bit to find its footing. The Wolves held the lead for most of the 1st half, but the Royals were able to find some success late in the half. Their offense was able to find success from beyond the arc and they continued to cut into the Milaca lead. Milaca was able to hold onto the lead going into halftime 25-23.

The first several minutes of the 2nd half belonged to Milaca. They could seemingly do no wrong. Defensively, they put on a masterclass. They completely shut down the Royals offense, and created a mountain of turnovers. Their offense fed off this and began to pull away. As the Wolves dominance continued and the half wore on the question was, could they keep up this performance through the entire half? Sadly no, the Royals used a couple timeouts to regroup. And sooner than later, Royalton had flipped the script and were now the ones controlling the game. While the Wolves were still ahead, the lead was slowly slipping away. Their offense struggled to find open shots and the defense was on their heels. While the Royals chipped away at the lead, they did start to pile up some fouls which allowed the Wolves to head to the free throw line. While they weren't perfect from the free throw line, they made the buckets they needed to, to hold on to the lead. Time became a factor and Milaca used that to their advantage to close out the game with the win 51-47.

The Wolves will play Pine City in the section semi finals on Tuesday back at St. Ben's.

Scoring

Milaca:

Annabelle Gothmann 21 points, 6 rebounds, 2 steals

Madison Gothmann 12 points, 5 rebounds, 3 steals

Kylie Johnson 8 points, 7 rebounds, 1 steal

Teagan Taylor 8 points, 3 steals, 1 rebound

Azalea Tesch 2 points, 5 rebounds, 3 blocks, 1 steal