The Lady Marauder's Mehgan McMullen cuts through two Hazen defenders on her way to the hoop in Last Saturday's 36-33 win over the Wildcats. Meghan had six points including what proved to be the game winning hoop in the closing minutes. Photo by Bill Croney, The Northfield News Last week was a one win-one loss week for Northfield High Girl’s basketball. On Thursday night they fell to Lake Region, the top ranked Div. III team in the state, by a 48-34 score and on Saturday afternoon they rebounded with a 36-33 win over the Hazen Wildcats. With two weeks left in the regular season the Lady Marauders are sporting a 12-3 record.

The Lady Marauders played well for three of the game’s four quarters against Lake Region but a weak second quarter spelled their doom.

Trailing 13-8 after one quarter the Lady Marauders didn’t have their signature defense att work in the second stanza and the Lady Rangers outscored Northfield 19-4 and at the half Lake Region had doubled up on the Maroon & White 32-16. During the break Northfield coach Lori Shepard emphasized the importance of re-establishing the defense and that seemed to work. In the third quarter the Lady Marauders held the powerful Rangers to just eight points. That was the good news. The bad news was that Northfield only managed to score four points of their own and after three quarters the Lake Region lead had stretched to 24 points at 40-16. In the fourth quarter the Lady Marauder’s inside game came alive. Northfield out-scored the state’s best Div. III team 18-8 as Jackie Susmann found the range for six of her team high ten points but the damage had been done and Lake Region rolled home with a 48-34 victory. Emily Martin and Meghan McMullen each had eight points and Kaitlyn McMullen rounded out he Lady Marauder scoring against the Rangers with seven.

Although they came out on the short end against Lake Region there were some bright spots for the Lady Marauders. “Credit he kids. We went out in that second half in a more complicated defensive set to give them a lot different look out there and we outscored them 22-16 in the second half. We held them to only 48 points which is well below their season average, They’ve been putting up 70 a night. The thing I like is that I think we came out of that game thinking t hat we can play with them, It was a total team effort in the second half. We started not o fear them.

We started taking it to them. They were getting frustrated, Said coach Shepard. “I told them that I’m going to find out just what you’re made of at 4:30 Saturday afternoon. I’ll find out if we can bounce back against Hazen Saturday after this tough loss.

The way things started out it didn’t look like the Northfield Girls would do much bouncing on Saturday afternoon. Hazen jumped out to a

13-5 lead after the first quarter and Northfield just seemed to be spinning their wheels. “We were stuck in neutral. We had absolutely no foot speed in that first half. We were trying to press them early and get them frustrated but we didn’t have the foot speed. We just didn’t do anything defensively in the first half.” said coach Shepard. The Lady Marauders did begin to come alive late in the second quarter and a short run just before the intermission pulled the Maroon and White to within one at 19-18 as they headed into the break.

At halftime the coach told the team , “Lets play some solid half-court man defense.” And that paid off. “They did a really good job in the second half. Jackie Susmann really stepped up her game big time in the second half,” coach Shepard said. The Northfield defense was so strong

that they shut-out the Wildcats for the first five minutes of the

third quarter and allowed only one field goal in the next three minutes. At the other end of the floor Kaitlyn McMullen poured in four third quarter points, her sister Meghan added two and Shannon Grant dropped in a field goal and Northfield had jumped out to a 26-21 lead after three.

The fourth quarter was as much a chess match as a basketball game. “We came out of a time out knowing they were going to set up their press and we broke it. The first time we broke it with ease and the second time was a little more forced but I believe in our ball handlers, Emily and Meghan. They did a great job taking care of the ball.,” the coach said.

The Wildcats did put up 12 points in the fourth quarter but Northfield countered with ten. Meghan McMullen’s inside hoop with just over a minute left put Northfield up 33-32 and Emily Martin nailed both ends of a one and one to give the Lady Marauders a little breathing room at

36-33 with time running out. Hazen had the ball with nine seconds to go and a three pointer would have sent he game into O.T. but once again the Northfield defense came up big and the Wildcats couldn’t get a shot away as the final buzzer sounded.

Emily Martin and Jackie Susmann paced the Lady Marauder attack with eight points each while Pearl Weggler, Kaitlyn McMullen and Meghan McMullen each added six points and Shannon Grant’s only two points on the afternoon came late in the fourth quarter when the team really needed them.

With the split of last weeks two games the Lady Marauder’s record now stands at 12-3.