The Lady Wildcats hosted the Lady Knights before winter break, receiving an early gift with a conference win. The final score was Belleville 54, New Glarus 40.

Belleville jumped out to an early 16-3 lead and never really looked back, hitting six of their first seven free throws. By halftime, Belleville had a 31-15 lead.

"We have been talking an awful lot about concentrating on our free throws and making good use out of our ability to get to the free throw line," Coach Sean Greenleaf said.  "When you make your free throws, good things usually will happen. We did a lot of good things the first half but we also let a lot of opportunities slip by, by not talking advantage of our defensive stops.  I think we were stuck on 31 points for like the last four minutes of the half.  We could have made things a lot tougher for New Glarus if we could have finished some of those late half baskets."

In the second half, New Glarus scored 25 points over Belleville's 23 but with Belleville controlling the defensive boards, New Glarus wasn't able to overcome their first half struggles.

"I thought tonight we showed a lot of toughness and grit.  We have had a lot of sickness going through the team but they all battled through it and played a very solid game.  I love seeing kids diving on the floor and winning the 50/50 ball battles," said Greenleaf. "Sophia and Jade did a great job of mixing things up a bit. They didn't score much but they did the little things like rebound and box out and dive for loose ball that won't show up in the box score.  Aimee also played a very nice game and with Kalin controlling the tempo, we did a very nice job overall."

Leading the Lady Wildcats was Rachael Heittola with 15 points and ten rebounds. Jenna Shrader netted 14 points and Kalin O'Rourke put 10 points on the board and had three steals. Aimee Sies scored 9 points and pulled down seven rebounds. Rounding out the scoring, with 4 points and seven rebounds was Jade Halvensleben, and Sophia Grady, who had 2 points and five rebounds.

Stats from New Glarus were unavailable at press time.

Up next for the Lady Wildcats is an invitational at Fort Atkinson on December 29th and 29th and they will host Marshall on January 4th. Belleville is 1-0 in the Capitol Conference South and 6-4 overall.

The Lady Knights play at a tournament in Cuba City on December 27th and 28th, and will host Cambridge on January 4th. New Glarus is 0-1 in the Capitol Conference South and 4-5 overall.