A Crown for Unity Girls; Comet Boys Soaring

The WE ARE Network covers 15 teams in both boys and girls basketball spanning five conferences.

Some of those teams are taking shots or have won conference championships.

It’s a season filled with abbreviated schedules and potentially postponed games due to the Pandemic.

But despite all its controversy, the games continue to take center stage.

 After a 30-year drought, the Unity Eagles girls’ basketball team has finally claimed a conference championship.

“Cutting down the nets after our win over Webster to secure the conference title for the first time in 30 years at Unity was good for the kids,” said Coach Joe Tilton.

 “They deserve these things as they have put in a lot of time and effort to get where they are at,” he added.

Tilton’s team has run up an impressive record, leading the Lakeland West at 8-0 with an 18-0 season record.

Coming off a season in which they came up one game short of state last year, the goal all along has been to make that next step. “This group has had a goal of getting to the state tournament since third grade.

They have gotten better every year and last year was the best year in our school’s history. Their drive to get to the state tournament remains really high,” said Tilton.

Recently against Frederic, Sierra Swanson scored her 1,000th point. “Sierra’s presence on the floor is huge. She’s a senior that has started for four years and is a good leader on and off the court. She averages 15.2 points per game and 7.3 rebounds per game,” added Coach Tilton.

Thursday night, they beat Webster 69-31 to claim the crown, and Coach Tilton noted that Swanson has hardly done it alone.

Raegan Sorenson leads the team and averages 23.2 points and eight rebounds per game; Sidney Bader averages 8.3 points and 4.1 rebounds, and Lizzy Tilton 4.4 points and 3.6 assists per game.

Against Webster, Sorensen poured in 26 points, Swanson 12, Bader eight, and both Sydney Smith and Cora Schmitz had seven each.

As the “masked” season begins to wind down towards the playoffs, Tilton feels that the past can’t do anything but help his team. “I think our experience will help us along in the playoffs. With the WIAA moving us to Division 3 at the last minute, it complicates things for us a little bit. The teams around here in Division 3 are all very good. Anyone can beat each other on any given night.”

No doubt negotiating this Pandemic season has not been easy.

“I think keeping the team healthy, out of quarantine, and playing all of our games so far has been a huge success,” said Coach Tilton.

Early in the season, Coach Ryan Karsten’s young Siren team made a lot of noise and were undefeated, going up against Unity. But since then, they’ve fallen off with three more losses and stand at 13-4 on the year. Sophomore Lindsay Liljenberg has been their scoring leader.

In the Heart o’North Conference, St. Croix Falls used a great year last season to springboard into a 14-1 season. They’ve taken the conference by storm at 10-1, with Barron and Northwestern looking up.

Flambeau’s 10-0 Lakeland East mark puts them at the top. The Falcons are 11-5 overall and have become one of The We Are Network’s top teams.

The Cameron Comets have risen to the top of the Heart o’North Conference with a 10-0 conference mark and a 14-1 overall record, marred only by a 63-61 loss to Marathon (15-6).

Coach Tony LaVallie ’s team was ranked seventh in Division 4 in the state at last report, and Friday night beat Bloomer, 70-47, to remain the conference’s only undefeated team.

Richie Murphy, who is averaging 18.8 points per game while shooting 42 percent from three-point range, recently scored his 1,000th point for the Comets.

On a team that has scored 89 three-pointers, Murphy helps his team average nearly 66 points per game with 156 steals. Murphy has 53 of them.

Leading the Comets in scoring is Austin Weis, who averages 22.6 points per game. He’s hit 42 three-pointers and averages over 40 percent from three-point land.

Also high on the scoring radar is Ian Payne, who dumps in 14.7 points per game and is a free throw expert, hitting 44 of 55 shots for 80 percent.

Josh Halverson at 3.9, Dylan Foss at 3.2, and Wyatt Warner at 2.9 also add to the scoring. Foss hits 43 percent of his two-point attempts.

On the boards, the Comets are not shabby at all. Weiss has cleaned off the glass with 99 rebounds this year, with Murphy collecting 86 and Payne 80. Warner with 32 is next, with Grant Paetzold at 28.

Few boys teams are putting on a better show than the Grantsburg Pirates in the Lakeland West Conference.

At 8-0 in the conference and 11-2 overall, the only blemishes on the Pirates record was a season-opening loss to Cameron, which has its own sites set on a run at the Heart o’North Conference crown, and Thursday night’s stunning 73-72 loss to Ashland, which ended the Pirates eleven game winning streak.

After leading by as much as 21 points, 65-44 with 8:11 to go, the Pirates were unable to stop the Oredeckers long-distance sniping and with 1:52 to go were tied at 71 after a three-point shot by Ashland’s Kevon Powell.

Grantsburg got a free throw from Carson Knutson to take a 72-71 lead. But with 30 seconds left, Ashland got 6-4 center Jared Tollas free under the basket for a 73-72 lead. The Pirates got a three-point shot, then a rebound, and a final close-in shot at the buzzer, but it fell off, and Ashland had a huge comeback win.