Wolfpack girls split pair of Wesco games

Teamwork makes the world go round.

In high school girls basketball, it can make the difference between winning big and losing a heartbreaker.

Last week, both scenarios occurred for the Wolfpack.

On Jan. 15, the Timberwolves traveled to Shoreline to face the 1-6 Shorewood Thunderbirds. Despite early parity, Jackson finally managed to pull away, primarily with a hot hand from junior post Emilee Eisinger.

“We played pretty well,” coach Julie Iverson said. “We didn’t play real well in the first half. Emilee was held to two (points) in the first half.”

For three quarters, the teams played tight basketball, see-sawing back and forth. Neither team dominated the first quarter, with Jackson outscoring Shorewood 7-4. In the second, the Timberwolves outscored Shorewood 14-9, giving the game a low halftime score of 21-13.

The Thunderbirds came out of the chute hard in the third quarter leading Jackson 16-8, taking a tie score into the final quarter.

And that’s when Eisinger caught fire.

Eisinger, who had trouble finding the hoop in the first half, scored 21 of Jackson’s 25 points in the fourth quarter, for a total of 28 points.

Sophomore post Sam McCracken finished with 16 to go with her 10 rebounds.

Cat Baller and Sheri Thom both worked hard to hold Shorewood’s Nanda McCormick to just 12 points, despite a per-game average of 16, according to Iverson.

“Cat is one of the best defenders in the league, and she draws the best players,” Iverson said.

McCracken and Eisinger both have had stellar seasons, Iverson said. And while their skill has been a major component in the success of the Timberwolves, so has teamwork.

“They’ve been doing it all year for us,” Iverson said. “To their teammates’ credit, they get them the basketball, unselfishly giving them the ball.”

Iverson said that her team’s defense worked well as a unit, rotating against their opponents.

“They created quite a few turnovers,” Iverson said. “Overall it was a pretty good team effort.”

The Jan. 17 game was a whole different story. Kamiak came to town with their own brand of teamwork and topped Jackson 56-49.

“To Kamiak’s credit, defensively, they were all over Sam and Emilee,” Iverson said. “Every time they had the ball, they had two or three people on them.

“Every time they crossed the key, the were bumped and banged all over.”

Iverson said the congestion was so intense that at times she forgot what offensive plan they were running.

With a scoring sensation like Eisinger being double- and triple-teamed, the Timberwolves would have had to find extra points from different sources. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.

If you took Eisinger and McCracken’s statistics out of the mix, the Timberwolves were just 3-for-23 from the field.

“We needed players to knock down wide-open shots and it just didn’t happen,” Iverson said. “They shot really well, we didn’t.

“We just made too many mistakes. Period.”

On the defensive side of the ball, things were just as tough for the struggling Timberwolves.

“Defensively, we did not do as well as we did against Shorewood,” Iverson said. “We struggled the whole game.”

Despite being unable to get cranked up, Eisinger still managed to come home with an impressive 20 points, while McCracken turned in another 16.

And despite Baller’s prowess in coverage, she was mostly left to her own resources, Iverson said.

“We didn’t play team defense very well,” Iverson said. “We sort of abandoned Cat. Sort of said, ‘Go ahead, do it yourself.’”

Additionally, the Knights overwhelmed the Timberwolves with rebounds, both offensively and defensively.

“When we don’t do well shooting, we need those second and third chances,” Iverson said.

Kamiak, however, capitalized on the struggling shooting more than Jackson.

The Knights came out strong, leading 20-10 after one quarter. In the second, the game was more even, with Jackson being outscored just 12-11, for a halftime score of 32-21. In the third quarter, Kamiak widened the gap, with a 17-12 period.

In the fourth quarter, Jackson finally found its groove and closed the gap. The Timberwolves got to within four points, but eventually the Knights pulled away.

“They have a lot of weapons,” Iverson said. “They shot the ball very well, and we got out of sync. It put us in a tailspin.”

With another week behind them, and so many more to go, the Timberwolves won’t look back too much. It’s one thing to analyze mistakes, another to dwell on them.

With a 4-4 league record, 5-5 overall, the team is still very much in the hunt for a successful finish.

“We talk about our mistakes. We come in day in, day out, focus on the mistakes and try to fix them,” Iverson said. “We focus on learning from our mistakes, learning week-to-week not to make the same mistakes again.”