SYRACUSE – It’s no secret Wawasee has, at times, struggled to score points. There have been occasions where the Lady Warriors have endured desert-like dry spells and it seems like a made basket feels like a cool drink of water. There have also been stretches where the team has scored the ball well, and kept pace with the opposition. The Lady Warriors snapped a seven-game losing streak late in the season with an overtime victory at Bremen. So the news isn’t all bad for Wawasee. The good news for the Lady Warriors is they have Kylee Rostochak, who averages nearly 14 points per game. The bad news? No one else on the team averages more than 3.6 points per contest, and the team is making only about a third of its shots. As a team, Wawasee averages about 35 points every time it takes the floor. “I think that has a lot to do with maturity and a lot to do with confidence,” said Lady Warriors coach Kem Zolman. “I’ve always said I don’t believe they’re that bad of shooters. We make ourselves that bad mentally. We’ve made ourselves that way with the mental approach to it. If I tell them to attack the basket, then all they’ll do is look for that opening in the lane to drive the basketball. They’ll pass up an open 12-footer because we told them to attack. “You don’t get a lot of major issues with your shot until the offseason, so we’ve got our work cut out for us then.” Seaquinn Bright has earned playing time with hustle and rebounding in the latter half of the season. Hannah Haines, Hannah-Marie Lamle and the team’s lone senior, Elizabeth Jackson, have contributed to the Wawasee effort on both ends of the floor. Zolman said his team has learned to handle full-court and half-court pressure well, and has hung in there defensively throughout the season. “Teams have tried to press us, and they may get a turnover or two, but I’ve been really pleased on how we handle pressure,” he said. “That’s an area we’ve improved on, because when a team with a lot of seniors on it pressured us, it used to bother us a lot. We’ve learned to handle it a lot better than we used to when teams pressure us. “It’s a funny thing, for the most part we can keep ourselves in the game defensively when we might be throwing the ball away. The game with (Tippecanoe) Valley was a prime example of that. We were playing well on both ends of the floor and all of a sudden we turned the ball over three straight times. Not to take anything away from Valley, they’re a really good team, but I think we caused all three of those turnovers. We didn’t come to the ball, we looked it down and anybody could have anticipated that pass. We were up four, and then boom! We give up three fast break layups and we’re down. “It’s the little mental breakdowns that have been our nemesis, and caused us, from a fan’s standpoint in terms of wins and losses, to not be very good.” For its opening game at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Hardwood Teepee, Wawasee drew Lakeland. The game will follow the Whitko/West Noble contest at 6 p.m., with the winners facing off in the semifinals at 7:30 p.m. Friday. In the other half of the bracket, NorthWood has a bye and will play the Tippecanoe Valley/Fairfield winner in Friday’s first game at 6 p.m. The championship game is set for 7:30 p.m. Saturday. The Lady Warriors have a win over the Lakers in LaGrange in the third game of the season, 43-34. Zolman said neither the draw nor the familiarity with sectional opponents really matters to him at all. “My answer to the draw is ‘it always depends on how well we did. If we win it all, it was a great draw. If we lose in the first round, it was the worst draw ever,’” Zolman cracked. “It just depends on how you take advantage of it in whatever aspect that might look like.”
