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Overtime win propels East Troy to state

Photo

Photo by Dan Lassiter

East Troy's Breanna Gaspervich battles Brodhead's Mariah Ahrens, left, and Rachel Heller for a loose ball.

EAST TROY — It took overtime to get it done, but the East Troy girls basketball team earned at trip to the WIAA state tournament with an 85-82 win Saturday over Richland Center.

Breanna Gaspervich scored 32 points for the Trojans in the Division 3 sectional semifinal.

East Troy (24-2) will take on Oostburg (22-4), at 10:45 a.m. Friday in the semifinal game at the Kohl Center in Madison. The championship will be at 2:25 p.m. Saturday.

The Trojans made it to Saturday's game following a decisive 58-37 victory over Brodhead (21-4) in a WIAA Division 3 sectional semifinal Thursday evening.

Rachel Atchison led the Trojans’ high-flying onslaught with 17 points, while Alicia Oleson and Andrea Olsen added 14 and 11, respectively.

The Trojans’ trademark fast break ignited a 15-4 first-quarter run that pushed them ahead, 21-10. Atchison led the attack with seven points, including a three-pointer to set the tone.

“We were jogging, and they (the Trojans) were sprinting,” Pickett said. “If we sprint, then maybe things would be a bit more difficult for them.”

Oleson continued to make it difficult for the Cardinals in the second quarter. The junior point guard’s six second-quarter points helped East Troy build a 31-13 halftime lead.

“I thought Alicia (Oleson) and Andrea (Olsen) really picked us up,” Brown said. “There are a lot of people on our team that can score in double figures when we need them. But we did it more tonight with defense more than offense, which is a good sign for us.”

The Cardinals did all they could to slow the pace in the second half. Taylor Douglas tallied 10 of her team-high 12 points in the second half.

“In the half court, we played pretty darn good, I thought,” Pickett said. “But it comes back to our transition, and they were able to extend that lead to 20, which is hard to come back from.”

The Cardinals, who never drew closer than 16 in the fourth quarter, managed to cap its season on a high note when Mohns, a 6-foot-1 sophomore who suffered a leg injury that put her out of action in mid-February, briefly entered the game and scored a layup in the final 10 seconds.