GOOD KNIGHT: NICOLET SMASHES HUSKIES, REACHES STATE FINAL

The rematch is halfway there.

After Nicolet handily trounced Eau Claire North in the WIAA girls state basketball tournament Friday evening, 72-46, the rematch with Pius XI is halfway complete.

The Knights (26-2) lost to Pius 67-63 on Dec. 28 at the Rathke Memorial Tournament in Franklin. The Popes played Middleton in the second semifinal on Friday.

The Knights took care of business by running North out of the gym right from the opening tip. North didn’t score its second basket until 1:20 was left in the first quarter. By then it was already too late as Nicolet had already established its fast-paced brand of basketball and led 15-4.

“We really tried to speed them up,” Nicolet coach Corey Wolf said. “That was our goal from the get go today, especially with our defense. We put a lot of pressure on them, make them play a little faster than maybe they want to play. I thought we did a really good job of that, especially in the first quarter.”

In the second, Eau Claire made a run at the Knights that drew the game to within 18 at the break.

But after taking the Huskies’ biggest charge, Nicolet came out of the locker room aggressive as ever and simply was too much to handle in every aspect of the game.

“I feel like at times we showed that we could play with Nicolet,” Eau Claire North head coach Michelle Peplinski said. “Unfortunately there were many more times when we were definitely outsized as far as our matchups. We did what we could but with a one-day turnaround from a Super Sectional there’s only so much you can prepare for, especially when we haven’t seen a team that’s been taller than us all year.”

Peplinski wasn’t using as an excuse the fact both teams were forced to play the night before, due to weather postponing their originally planned Super Tuesday games.

“The Super Sectional format this year didn’t work out the way that was beneficial to us, but I’ll be honest — I don’t think we were going to have anybody grow five inches last night,” she said.

The North coach was giving a nod to Nicolet senior center Alex Cohen. The 6-foot-5 future Northwestern Wildcat had almost a half-foot advantage on the Huskies’ tallest players and it showed as she gobbled up eight rebounds (five offensive), and netted 25 points on 11-of-15 shooting.

“I don’t think it was specifically part of the game plan (to go down low that much),” Cohen said. “We just try to get whoever’s open and if more girls are focusing on one player then all the other girls are open, so I think that’s a really good thing about our team because everyone can contribute on the floor … it really just depends how the other team is playing.”

In that second half, everything that could go wrong for the Huskies did. Cohen dominated down low while guards Ashley Green, Brittney Fair and Gaby Bronson poured in the points from the perimeter.

The trio combined for 38 points with Green doing most of the damage with 21.

With 6:44 remaining in the game, the lead swelled to 39 for the Knights. Wolf subbed in a variety of players, but Nicolet’s speed and pesky ball pressure proved to frustrate North more than usual.

Said Wolf, “What makes this team so unique is that we’re really athletic but we’re also good basketball players – very fundamental."

The Knights shot 63.6 percent from the floor for the game, just shy of the Division 1 record at the state tournament.

Nicolet plays the winner of Pius XI/Middleton Saturday evening at approximately 8:20 p.m. for the state title.

“Both teams are really good,” Cohen said. “I’ve seen both play … but there might be a little extra (rooting for) Pius just because we lost to them earlier in the year. We want to take that back and show them what we can do the second time, but like I said both teams are very good and we’ll see what happens tonight.”

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