Wolverines are M&O Conference Champs

Crivitz survived an absolute brawl with Lena on Tuesday night, closing out a 53-48 win to claim the outright M&O Conference title on its home floor.

The Wolverines built an early cushion behind Izabella Wesoloski’s work on the glass and Kiya Brand’s scoring, but Lena steadied itself late in the first half and trimmed the margin to 20-18 at the break.

The Wildcats grabbed the lead in the second half and would eventually push their advantage to 46-40 late in the game.

That’s when Brand took over.

The junior guard buried a three from the corner in front of her own bench to pull Crivitz to within a bucket at 46-43

The Wildcats answered with two points on a crafty inbounds play that saw Abby Kostreva put a shot away for a 48-43 edge with under two minutes left but Crivitz responded with another huge three-pointer from Brand to bring the home team to within two points at 48-46.

Moments later, Marli Meyers willed her way to a score inside to tie the game at 48-48 with :57 remaining, sending the gym into a frenzy.

From there, Brand closed it out at the line.

With the conference title hanging in the balance, she calmly knocked down the go-ahead free throws with 38 seconds left, then sealed the 53-48 win in the final moments as Lena was forced to foul.