Marines claim first NEC title in school history

The game got off to a slow start, with neither team scoring in the first two minutes.

Bryanna Torkko claimed the first points of the game for the Marines with two back-to-back baskets.

“At the beginning of the game, I think we had a hard time kind of settling in and getting in the flow of the game,” said Zac Barker, Marinette girls basketball head coach. “Then we made some traditional plays of our defense and it just kind of sparked that emotion.”

Elliana Martin scored the Mustangs first two points of the game, but Marinette quickly regained control of the ball and Olivia Hanson, Torkko and Chloe Seymour each made baskets.

Two free throws made by Kyra Whalley for the Mustangs brought the score up to 10-4.

Kaya Bodam, Torkko and Seymour scored a collective 7 points for the Marines before Martin scored the Mustangs’ final points of the half with just over 8 minutes left.

Marinette’s Bodam, Torkko and Seymour closed out the half with a 13-point run, leaving the score at

30-6.

Unlike the first half, scoring began early in the second half with Torkko and Seymour adding five points for the Marines and Martin and Grace Jansen adding six points for the Mustangs all in the first four minutes.

Martin snuck in another basket for the Mustangs before Marinette’s Torkko, Josie Smerchek, Seymour and Madison Sherwood racked up 10 points between 11:40-7:00

The score sat at 14-45 for the next four minutes until Little Chute took hold of the ball and scored 8 points in the final three minutes, bringing the final score to 22-45.

This victory for the Marines came just two days after another victory also against the Mustangs, and both games were played without two of Marinette’s key players.

“Tuesday was the first game without both Riley Kieffer and Regan Hermanson — they’re two of the seven that played the majority of minutes for us this year and Riley leads us in scoring,” Barker said. “So Tuesday we got away with the emotion of being at home and stuff, and now we’re back to reality and having to figure out what we can do to win a game next week without two very important pieces.”

In Kieffer and Hermanson’s absence, several other players stepped up to the plate and scored more than ten points during Thursday’s game, including Torkko with 15 points, Bodam with 12 and Seymour with 11.

“We’ve had six people average over six points [per game] and we’re not really scoring a ton of points on average,” Barker said. “It’s just a credit to selflessness, but that’s not saying none of them can step up and do it. I’m just proud of Bryanna and Kaya and all the other ones that have had their moments throughout the season because it’s a long season and in order to win a conference championship and win this conference, you can’t just be one player or one dimensional. You’ve got to be able to withstand a long 24-game season.”

Proving that sentiment to be true, Marinette headed home after Thursday’s game with the first girls’ basketball conference win in school history.

“A lot of effort and hard work has gone into this — by the players, by the coaching staff, by others and behind the scenes — in order to have a successful program,” Barker said. “We’re not at the level of other programs around like Freedom and even Wrightstown — there’s a lot of very talented programs down in the Fox Valley. We’ve done a year. We haven’t done it consistently, but I feel like we’re on the trajectory where we can withstand some injuries and year-over-year development of players and hopefully we can stay near the top of this conference and pull together to get another one of these.”