ONALASKA — The West Salem High School girls basketball team struggled through the first half of a Coulee Conference championship game against Onalaska Luther on Thursday.
The Panthers missed easy shots, made too many turnovers against a good defense and needed Josie Brudos to make two late 3-pointers to take a lead into halftime.
They needed someone to take over if they were going to avoid sharing their fifth straight conference title, and senior Megan Johnson quickly turned into that person.
The Winona State commit either scored or assisted on West Salem’s first 15 points of the second half, and that sent the Panthers on their way to a 51-35 victory over the Knights.
The outcome gave West Salem (19-4, 12-0), ranked eighth in Division 2 by state coaches, a fifth straight conference title and a 40th consecutive conference win.
“In the second half, we worked on screens and playing higher to open up the driving lanes,” said Johnson, who finished with 19 points and eight rebounds. “That made things a lot better for us.”
Johnson’s touches were limited by Luther senior Macie Neumeister in the first half, and she scored just four points. She never left Johnson’s side and forced the ball to go other places, which led to a low-scoring half. Luther (18-6, 10-2), which was trying to force a share of the title, led the majority of the half by making everything difficult on the Panthers’ offense.
Senior Payton Holub gave the Knight a 13-10 lead on a jump shot with 6 minutes, 23 seconds left in the half. Luther was winning, but Neumeister — its leading scorer — spending so much energy defending against Johnson made it difficult to get her incorporated into the offense.
The Panthers took their first lead since a brief one very early when senior Makena Ihle successfully fought for a loose ball and fired it down the court to Brudos, who hit a 3 for a 15-13 lead with 2:11 left. Ihle then rebounded a missed shot at the other end, and that possession turned into another 3 by Brudos for an 18-13 lead.
Ihle finished with 13 rebounds, and eight of them were on the offensive end.
“We couldn’t shoot, couldn’t dribble,” West Salem coach Mike Malott said. “We played awful (offensive) basketball the first half, so we talked (at halftime) about doing the little things better.
“But we held them to 13, so the defense was playing pretty well.”
That set up Johnson to swing the tide for good and allow her team to keep sole possession of the championship.
Johnson set out to dominate the lane and did. She scored twice, then assisted on another Brudos 3. She scored again, then assisted on a Sam Niemeier basket. Suddenly, the Panthers had a 29-16 lead.
Holub’s basket with 6:23 left in the first half wasn’t followed by another until Neumeister knocked down a 3 with 13:25 left in the second half. That stretch of nearly 11 minutes between baskets allowed the Panthers to seize control.
“Good players show up when they’re team needs them,” Malott said of Johnson. “Sometimes I think we play through her too much, but sometimes you go by the feel of the situation.”
While finding their offensive stride, the Panthers continued their strong defensive play.
West Salem held Neumeister and Allie Zittel — the Knights’ top two scorers — to a combined eight points on 2-for-12 shooting. Neumeister was scoreless in the first half, and Zittel was scoreless in the second half. They had combined for either 38 or 39 in Luther’s past three games.
Brudos ended up with 15 points for the Panthers.
Beating the Knights a second time gave the Panthers eight wins in the last nine heading into the Division 2 regionals. West Salem will deal with that next week. Thursday night was about celebrating its latest championship and another big win over a rival.
“They always give us a hard time,” Johnson said of the Knights. “This was a chance at their court to give it to us, but we worked as a team and got it done.”
