The Belleville girls basketball team showed it's a force to be reckoned with in the Capitol South Conference with a 56-50 victory over the 11-1 Cambridge on Tuesday, January 9th, at Cambridge. The Wildcats came out determined against a strong Blue Jays team that earlier in the week had received honorable mention votes for D4 state rankings. Belleville led the entire game and played well enough of a first half to take a 24-20 lead into the locker room, much to the pleasure of Coach Greenleaf.

"The first half was about as good of one we have played against a quality opponent all season," said Greenleaf. "We controlled the pace and really picked up our defensive efforts to limit the number of quality offensive possessions Cambridge would have."

Belleville came out in the second half and displayed what kind of team they can be when healthy. The Cats used strong rebounding to limit Cambridge to one shot per possession, and also used their quickness to turn those rebounds into fast break opportunities.

"We talk each game about Knowing Our No's, the things we know we must do in order to compete. One of those No's is No Second Chance baskets, meaning when the opposition misses we must get the rebound and not give them a second chance to score. We did a great job of that in the second half and then turning that into points on our end," said Greenleaf. "We also stress doing the 'little' things, which we did an awesome job of doing tonight. Things like sprinting the court, keeping our spacing on the break and hitting the corners to draw the defense out. Was really nice to see from the girls. I also thought our toughness was at a high level, especially from sophomores Jenna Shrader and Sophia Grady and junior Jade Halvensleben. The three of them battled much bigger girls all night and didn't give in once. Jenna and Sophia were playing the low posts, something they aren't asked to do much and really battled against some strong players."

Junior Rachael Heittola led Belleville with 18 points and 11 rebounds. Senior Kalin O'Rourke punched in 15 points while dishing out four assists and sophomore Jenna Shrader hit for 10 points. Rounding out the scoring were Jade Halvensleben with 6, six rebounds and three assists, Aimee Sies with 5 points and five steals and sophomore Sophia Grady had 2 points and five rebounds.

On Friday, January 12th, the Lady Cats played at home against Capitol South opponent Waterloo. The Cats started the game on a slow note, falling behind to the Pirates 15-9 before Greenleaf would call a timeout and try to right the ship.

"I just felt we didn't have a good rhythm going and our energy level was down a bit, so I took a timeout to give some friendly reminders about what we needed to do," said Greenleaf.

Those reminders paid off as Belleville went on a 27-11 run to finish out the half and take a 36-26 lead at halftime.

"The final 10 minutes of the half we really played some decent basketball, created turnovers and really played good team ball...we looked for each other," the coach would add. 

The second half would see Belleville increase their lead to up to 22 points and never look back, winning 69-53.

"I saw some really good things from our team tonight but we are still getting beat too often on the defensive end," said Greenleaf. "We need to get that straightened out right away. It's just small things now, nothing too huge."

Sophomore Jenna Shrader and junior Rachael Heittola each led Belleville with 17 points apiece, with Heittola also grabbing 17 rebounds. Senior Kalin O'Rourke scored 12 points with three assists, and junior Jade Halvensleben netted 10 points and grabbed six rebounds. Finishing the scoring were Aimee Sies with 6 and sophomores Sophia Grady and Erin Kittleson each punching in 3 points. 

Next up for Belleville is a home game on Tuesday, January 16th, against Ripon. They host Wisconsin Heights on January 18th and will play at Marshall on January 23rd.