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How Did the Beaver Dam Wi High School Basketball

Written By terça-feira, 14 de dezembro de 2021 Add Comment Edit

'We have a high ceiling': Why Beaver Dam girls basketball coach trusts young, athletic roster ready to carry torch

Kylie Wittnebel

Beaver Dam's Kylie Wittnebel (5) catches a pass in the paint before turning and scoring on an uncontested lay-up during the first half of the Golden Beavers' 63-60 win over Reedsburg on Jan. 8, 2021. Wittnebel is Beaver Dam's top returning scorer this season and will be called upon even more now that a starting line-up of all seniors has graduated.

A brief recap of what the Beaver Dam girls basketball team has accomplished in the last five years:

  • Two losses in the 2015-16 season, one of them coming in overtime in the sectional finals, denying the Golden Beavers a state berth by the narrowest of margins.
  • A record-tying three straight state titles, all in Division 2, over the next three seasons — a run that included a perfect 28-0 mark in 2016-17, a season-long stay in the MaxPreps top-25 national rankings in 2017-18 and a fourth straight state berth in 2019-20 before the COVID-19 pandemic put an abrupt end to their bid at becoming the only program in state history to win four straight championships.
  • Fifteen girls continuing on to college careers, including 2021 graduate Maty Wilke, one of the top recruits in the country who had offers from a list of who's who programs in NCAA Division I women's basketball.

The common thread tying all those teams together was experience. Yes, there were some big shoes to fill each year and, yes, team identities and player roles changed from year to year.

But experience was never an issue.

This year is different. The Golden Beavers don't lack experience entirely — but comparatively speaking, experience remains the biggest question mark entering the 2021-22 campaign, which kicks off Tuesday at home against Sheboygan North.

The Golden Beavers don't see that as a problem.

They see it as motivation.

"I'm excited about the challenge. This is an awesome chance for us to prove it — to prove that we're really still Beaver Dam basketball," said head coach Tim Chase, the overseer of a program that's gone from 0-21 in year one under his watch back in 2006-07 to the state tournament four years later to its current dynasty status.

"I think everybody wants to say, 'Hey, they're not this anymore, they lost all these kids,' but I'm so excited about this group of kids and the energy they've shown so far," he added. "It's not going to be easy this year and we're just going to have to go out every single day and give our absolute best."

Beaver Dam's run of 24 straight postseason victories came to an end last season in the Division 1 sectional semifinals — the Golden Beavers got bumped up a division because of the number of teams that weren't playing due to the pandemic — when they ran into eventual AP state player of the year KK Arnold and Germantown.

With that loss, the five seniors on the team — Wilke among them, though she had been out since the eighth game because of a torn ACL — waved goodbye and the torch was passed to this year's group.

The injury to Wilke, as well as an injury bug the Beavers caught throughout 2020-21, meant that some other girls had to play more minutes than was anticipated.

So while it's true that Beaver Dam is shorter on experience entering this season than in recent seasons, the Golden Beavers aren't an entirely green bunch.

"We do have a really solid guard front, and then I throw those kids in with our post group … it's a nice group this year," Chase said. "We've got some experience and we're hoping that they can take that next step."

The leader entering the season, statistically at least, is 6-footer Kylie Wittnebel, a junior who averaged 8.0 points per game last year.

Next is sophomore Gabby Wilke, Maty's younger sister who had an injury-plagued rookie campaign but averaged 7.8 points in the 13 games she did play in.

After that it's a number of girls — juniors Carlee Lapen, Bella Oestreicher, Maddie Kuenzi and Ellen Poels, sophomores Riley Czarnecki and Anni Salettel and the incoming group of freshmen — who will be looking to make their mark.

"It's this group's opportunity and chance to prove what they can do," Chase said. "The ones that have done the work in the offseason, which I believe there are quite a few of them, and are working hard now in practice — you'll see a lot of improvement in a lot of kids from what you saw last year."

Chase reiterated the fact that keeping the program's tradition of success going is the goal — "It's a great challenge for all of us, every one of us, to try to play Beaver Dam basketball; that's what we're trying to emulate: What these teams over the years have done," he said — but he also knows that you can't put the cart before the horse when it comes to accomplishing that goal.

"They just have to have the mindset that each day they're going to come to practice and make themselves better — and along with that, to make themselves better they have to also make their teammates better," Chase said. "If they can do those two things consistently, we can probably take some pretty big strides this year."

Another question Chase and his lieutenants will be trying to answer early on in the year is one regarding depth — how deep and versatile is the bench?

"I think the hardest thing with what we've gone through the last two years (with the pandemic) is we haven't really had normal offseasons in the summer," Chase said. "Some of our kids have gotten some great AAU experience, which is great, but specifically what we do in our program, it hasn't been as much."

Beaver Dam has substituted liberally throughout its run of success, something it has been able to do because of how deep the bench has been.

While Chase can't be sure the Golden Beavers will be able to do the same this year, he does like the possibilities of it because of the overall athleticism of the group.

"We're certainly going to try," he said. "From my aspect, the hardest thing is just figuring out, 'Is this really who we are?' If it is who we are, then great. And if it's not, then we have to make the adjustments and figure out what way we have to play to have the most success."

Regardless of how things ultimately look in terms of Xs and Os, Chase is optimistic success is in the cards.

"We have a high ceiling," he said. "I don't know if we'll show it right away, but I do believe we have a high ceiling.

"How high that is just depends on how healthy we stay and how we can just keep on getting better."

Follow Dan on Twitter @Danny_Larson_8 or contact him at 920-356-6753.

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How Did the Beaver Dam Wi High School Basketball

Source: https://www.wiscnews.com/bdc/sports/high-school/basketball/girls/we-have-a-high-ceiling-why-beaver-dam-girls-basketball-coach-trusts-young-athletic-roster/article_e5a8766c-7ea1-5e20-8249-8e3752bb6c16.html

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