Spartans flex their muscle in season finale

Talk about it

There is every reason to believe the Somerset girls basketball team was fully ready for the start of the WIAA playoffs this week.

The Spartans were scheduled to play at Ashland on Tuesday in the opening round of WIAA regional tournament action. The Spartans were seeded sixth in the regional, but with an 11-9 record, no team can take the Spartans lightly. The winner of Tuesday’s tournament game will play again this Thursday, facing the winner of the game between Hayward and New Richmond. The winner of Saturday’s game will advance to Saturday’s regional final, which will be played at 2 p.m. at Unity High School.

In last Thursday’s season finale the Spartans showed their firepower, devastating Baldwin-Woodville 69-36. Somerset coach Bill Powers said he used this game to work on different plays that the team had installed for its playoff game with Ashland.

One of the highlights for the Spartans in Thursday’s win was an amazing display of shooting by Spartan sophomore Ashley Martell in the second quarter. In a stretch of two minutes, 20 seconds, Martell drained four straight three-point shots.

“That was unbelievable. Hopefully that’s a springboard for her,” Powers said.

Martell finished the game with 19 points. Spartan senior guard Kellie Ring totalled 20 points. Ring also came up with six steals in the game, as the ball-hawking Spartans stole the ball 22 times. Karli Solum led the Spartans with six rebounds.

All about Amery

Last Tuesday the Spartans went to Amery and for three quarters, gave the Warriors all they could handle.

In the fourth quarter Amery was able to continue its scoring pace, but the Spartans could not. Amery pulled away for a 55-37 win.

In this game Amery’s Heather Byl scored the 1,000th point of her career. She became the fifth conference girls player to achieve that milestone this season. Ring reached the 1,000-point mark for Somerset earlier this season. Amery’s Taylor Luke, Prescott’s Kaycee Charette and Durand’s Samantha Hoyt are also 1,000-point scorers.

The Somerset and Amery girls have locked into some colossal battles in the four years the teams’ seniors battled each other. This was another of those games. Amery led 25-23 at halftime and 38-33 after three quarters.

The Spartans showed impressive energy in this game, considering they had lost to Osceola by one point in a tense game the night before.

“It’s tough for a high school kid, with all they have going on, to play Monday and Tuesday nights,” Powers said.

Most of the action in the fourth quarter came at the free throw line. All of Somerset’s fourth quarter points came from the line and Amery was 11-14 from the free throw line in the fourth quarter.

Ring led the Spartans with 11 points against Amery and Karli Solum scored 10 points. Solum led the team with eight rebounds.

Tags: sports, girls, basketball, somerset, spartans, ashland