Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
SYRACUSE - Wawasee girls basketball coach Kem Zolman says he has to write a thank you letter to the Indianapolis Star after his team dismantled Westview 80-48 Friday night in the season opener.
After all, Zolman believes it may have been an article published in the Nov. 9th edition of the newspaper that inspired his daughter, 5-9 sophomore Shanna Zolman, to set a Wawasee school record by scoring 50 points. Zolman's offensive output breaks her record of 43 set last season against Tippecanoe Valley.
"I thought she had an off night," said Kem, telling a group of reporters he thought she'd be lucky if she had 25. "She wasn't sticking her legs and wasn't pulling up right. There was an article in the Indianapolis Star about this six-foot freshman phenomenon (Katie Geralds) from Beech Grove. I gave it to Shanna before she went to bed Thursday. She said not to give her an article like that. That article came in very timely fashion. I would like to send them our thank yous."
Zolman set the new mark with a 21-of-31 shooting performance that included four treys and a 4-of-5 effort at the free throw line. She also tallied eight rebounds, seven steals and three assists.
Sophomore Dusty Krull added nine points to the winning effort. Freshmen Meagen Wallen and Jessica Leach combined for 10 points, rounding out the scoring for the all-underclassmen starting five.
Freshman Crystal Fawley started but didn't score.
"Her (Fawley) role is to handle the ball with as little turnovers as possible," said Kem. "I thought she made some excellent passes. Her role isn't to score, but she can."
After the game, Kem was asked when he made his decision to go with the all-underclassmen starting lineup.
"This afternoon," he said trying not to smile, his team having just won by 32 points. "We talked about it. The main thing was to talk to the upperclassmen and let them know their respective roles. We knew we had a lot of inexperienced people out there. But things went pretty well. It was a huge thing for them (upperclassmen) to accept the role of coming off the bench. I don't think we lost a beat when they came in."
Jenny Wingstrom, the only other scorer other than Zolman to hit double figures, led Westview with 16 points on 5-of-10 shooting. She also made good on 6 of 8 free throws. Jessi Taylor and Andrea Mishler added eight and six points respectively.
Zolman gave Wawasee the first lead of the game, a lead it held from start to finish, with a steal and basket just 14 seconds into the game. Leach followed that with two consecutive rebounds and baskets of her own to give Wawasee a 6-0 lead.
"Jessica, she had about what, three putbacks," said Kem. "I prayed all day long the girls would see success and gain confidence and be able to build on that."
Wawasee outscored Westview 21-7 in the first frame and 19-12 in the second stanza, giving it a 40-19 halftime advantage. Zolman had 24 points when the two teams headed for the locker rooms. A big share of Wawasee's points came off situations caused by the defense.
Westview was victim to 20 turnovers, while Wawasee had but 10 mishaps with the ball.
"She (Shanna) still does what she has to do," said Kem. "The chant this year is defense. It's change from last year's hard to believe. We believe we can play. Now we're working on them all the time on defense. Three-fourths of our practices has been spent on defense. That's our emphasis. Our goal is to keep teams under 50."
With Shanna's offensive ability, Wawasee is in good shape if its defense can hold opponents under 50.
"I can score 60, I can score 20," said Shanna, humbly. "It doesn't matter to me, as long as the outcome is good. I didn't plan on being the leading scorer last year. If I get a quiet 30, I'd rather have that than being cocky."
Zolman scored 21 points in the third quarter as Wawasee outscored Westview 29-14 in the frame.
With the same quickness she uses to pull the trigger on her jump shot, Zolman dished out compliments to her young teammates.
"They did excellent tonight," said Shanna, who led the state in scoring with a 31 points per game average a year ago, and who got her driver's license a little over a month ago. "We are very young. I don't know of any team that has that in their JV lineup. We can be consistent or we can be really inconsistent. But we're going to be exciting to watch with our talent no matter how young we are."
Wawasee (1-0) will host Elkhart Memorial Friday with the junior varsity tipping off at 6:15 p.m.
WAWASEE 80, WESTVIEW 48
Westview 7 12 14 15 - 48
Wawasee 21 19 29 11 - 80
Westview FG FT A S R Pts.
Ponce (G) 1-4 0-0 0 0 1 3
Bender (G) 0-3 3-5 0 0 0 3
Mishler (F) 2-5 2-2 0 1 0 6
Fisher (F) 1-2 0-1 0 1 2 2
Wingstrom (C) 5-10 6-8 0 1 9 16
Taylor 3-4 2-4 0 1 2 8
Haney 2-4 0-0 0 2 1 5
Weaver 0-1 0-0 0 0 1 0
Ortiz 1-4 3-4 0 0 8 5
Totals 15-37 16-24 0 6 28 48
Wawasee FG FT A S R Pts.
Zolman (F) 21-31 4-5 3 7 8 50
D. Krull (G) 4-9 0-1 1 3 5 9
Fawley (G) 0-2 0-0 2 0 2 0
Wallen (F) 1-3 2-3 0 0 4 4
Leach (F) 3-4 0-0 0 1 5 6
Pletcher 0-2 0-0 0 0 1 0
Henderson 0-1 0-0 0 0 1 0
Sawyer 2-5 0-0 0 1 1 4
Hunziker 2-4 1-2 0 0 2 5
Hunt 0-3 0-3 0 0 3 0
Lamb 0-0 2-2 0 0 0 2
S. Krull 0-3 0-0 0 0 2 0
Totals 33-67 9-16 7 11 40 80
Three-pointers - Westview 2 (Ponce 1, Haney 1), Wawasee 5 (Zolman 4, D. Krull 1). Turnovers - Westview 20, Wawasee 10. Fouls - Westview 14, Wawasee 20.
JV - Wawasee 30, Westview 24
