Post Messenger Recorder -

On Thursday, December 28th and Friday, December 29th, the Belleville Lady Wildcats traveled to Fort Atkinson to participate in the Fort Atkinson Holiday Tournament. Other teams participating included Lakeside Lutheran, Slinger, Fond du Lac North, Martin Luther, Milwaukee School of Languages, Saint Thomas More and host team, Fort Atkinson.

The Wildcats faced Milwaukee School of Languages on Thursday. In the first half, the Wildcats defense created a lot of MSL turnovers and turned them into easy baskets. Milwaukee had trouble keeping up with the speed of the Wildcats and by halftime Belleville led 44-17.

"We knew that we could run on this team and that if we did it well and made good decisions, we would be in a good spot," said Coach Sean Greenleaf.

The second half saw much of the same, as the Wildcats limited MSL's star player, Jackson State commit Adia Rogers, to a mere 10 points as the Wildcats ran away with the 81-48 victory over the Lady Hawks.

"We had a balanced night scoring wise and once again had several kids who will not be mentioned in the box score but did a ton of things for us and those kids that did get the opportunities to score," said Greenleaf. 

Scoring a game high 20 points for Belleville was Kalin O'Rourke. Jade Halvensleben put 18 points on the board, Rachael Heittola scored 15 points, Aimee Sies chipped in 11 points, and rounding out the scoring for the Wildcats was Jenna Shrader with 7 points and eight rebounds, Erin Kittleson with 5 points, Kori Rogers with 4 points, and Sophia Grady scored 1 point and had five rebounds.

On Friday, Belleville faced host team Fort Atkinson. The Wildcats jumped out to an early 10-0 lead and were leading by 12 when the Blackhawks began chipping away at it. Fort Atkinson was able to use some timely 3-pointers to close the gap, but Belleville was leading 22-18 at the half.

"We had a lot of defensive stops in row, but we also didn't score any points during those stops.  I have always told my players that we can't afford to have a string of empty possessions," said Greenleaf.  "If you let teams hang around long enough by not putting them away, bad things can happen."

The Wildcats had their work cut out for them in the second. Fort Atkinson kept chipping away and took a 1-point lead.

"I thought our girls showed some toughness when things weren't going well.  It would have been easy to fold when Fort took the lead but they kept fighting and never gave up.  I am very proud of them for that," said Greenleaf. 

Belleville stepped it up on offense and defense and came away with the 48-42 victory. "We didn't play our best game by any means, but sometimes you have to win ugly.  You don't get any style points for how you win, you just get a win."

Rachael Heittola finished the game with a game high 13 points and six rebounds to lead the Wildcats. Jade Halvensleben put 12 points on the board and pulled down 7 rebounds, Aimee Sies scored 8 points and had eight rebounds, Kalin O'Rourke scored 6 points, Sophia Grady netted 5 points and Erin Kittleson and Jenna Shrader scored 2 points each.

The Wildcats host Marshall on January 4th, and play at Cambridge on January 9th.