Lomira wins it late against NFDL

The play took all five players to execute.

Coach Liz Cook trusted all five girls on the floor to get the job done.

Freshman Josie Christian was the primary option on the play, she got open in the corner and knocked down a jump shot to clinch Lomira's 49-48 Flyway win at North Fond du Lac.

"I think it's just our resilience," Cook said. "We're getting to the point where we've had a couple of close games here, where we know now just to take a deep breath and relax.

"They trusted me to come up with something for them to execute and I trusted them to execute the play, and they did it perfectly."

Coming out the timeout with about 25 seconds left, Christian took the inbounds pass and fired it straight back to Savanna Frea. Christian then ran off two screens, one from Katelynn Kretschmer and one from Kennedy Goebel.

Frea was spot on with her cross-court pass back to Christian.

"[Cook] drew up a play for me to get into the corner and for my teammates to set good screens for me to get a wide-open shot," Christian said. "We had the tallest player, Savanna, throw it to me because we knew she could get it to me.

"We had a good play that we did."

There were still more than 10 seconds left when NFDL inbounded the ball. Lomira (12-7 overall, 6-4 in Flyway) forced the ball to Morgan Fowler, who couldn't get her floater to drop, the Lions cleared the rebound and secured the win.

Cook said she thinks rebounding late was a key.

"We finished with a really strong rebound," Cook said. "That was probably the biggest thing. Even on some free-throw attempts, we stressed rebounding because rebounding is going to win you those games down the stretch."

The game could have gotten away from NFDL earlier in the second half, for Lomira had a 35-26 lead with 11:42 left, but senior Brianna Dobke stepped up with four second-half 3-pointers to keep the Orioles in the game.

Dobke finished with 12, which was tied with Allison Now for a team high. However, Lomira limited Now to just a single point in the second half.

Christian was the hero yet again, but NFDL (7-9, 3-6) made it a long game for the freshman, face-guarding her and playing physically when she tried to get into the paint.

The Orioles deployed Now, Morgan Fowler and Natalia Zamora on Christian. All three did a stellar job at slowing her down. Still, Christian was able to score a game-high 16.

She said she had to stay patient and trust her teammates.

"That whole game I had to be patient, wait for people to set screens for me, curl them because I know that when they try to guard me close, I can't do much about it," Christian said. "I just have to be patient, get open whenever I can and I'll just rely on my teammates a lot."

The difference between Friday night and other games that Christian was held to fewer than 20 points was the timely shooting.

Perhaps none bigger than that of Kretschmer, who made a pair of important 3s in the first half. Kretschmer went on to finish with a season-high 14 points.

"You get a lot of confidence from [made shots]," Kretschmer said. "But then you also have your team behind you supporting, which makes it a lot easier to want to keep shooting."

Lomira also got important contributions from Goebel and Frea. Goebel hit an early 3 in each half and scored 8 while Frea scored 6 of her 7 points in the first half.

Kretschmer said balance has been a focal point of late.

"It's very important and coach talks about it all the time," Kretschmer said. "It's a team effort so once everyone gets going, the whole offense, the defense, everything just comes together and it's just a really fun feeling."

PHOTO GALLERY: Lomira at NFDL girls basketball - 1/31/2025