Sports Wrapups: Jan. 16

Menomonee Falls girls hoops

When the Indians fell behind 6-0 on Friday to West Allis Central, coach Craig Amundson had an "Oh no!" moment, thinking that this was going to be a repeat of the offensive debacle that gave his team its first Greater Metro loss to Sussex Hamilton on Jan. 6.

But then he became relieved as the ball started going into the basket and the Indians were able to cruise to a 70-54 victory.

"And of all the places, WAC is not usually one of them where we find our offense," Amundson said, "but we played good defense. We hit a good percentage of our shots, we had only 17 turnovers and we got to the foul line a lot (21 of 35 on the night).

"A lot of kids contributed to this."

With the win, the Indians improved to 4-1 in the GMC race and 11-2 overall. They are tied for second in the league with DSHA behind unbeaten Sussex Hamilton (5-0, 9-0). They host a pair of struggling teams next, taking on West Allis Hale on Friday and Brookfield East the following Tuesday.

Amundson is hoping to get forward Alex Poole back soon. Poole had some surgery done last week on her nose after breaking it in a recent game.

Falls rallied from its early deficit to go up 18-12 at the quarter and then 35-24 at the break. The Indians broke open the game with a 17-7 effort in the third. A total of nine players scored led by Erin Crownover with 16 points (she also had 17 rebounds) while Rachel Defnet had 13 (including 11-of-13 free throws), Haley Precia 12 and Mikayla Robertson 10 and Amber Bullock nine.

Germantown wrestling

Germantown had a great showing at the Elkhorn Invite on Saturday according to coach Casey Gabrielson.

The Warhawks walked away with a 3-2 dual meet record and a third-place finish with Elkhorn winning the title and West Allis Hale taking second.

Germantown opened the meet with a 63-18 win over Janesville Parker and then fell to Hale, 50-20. The Warhawks beat Clinton, 65-6, before falling to Elkhorn, 65-6, before closing the meet with a 48-31 victory over Brookfield Central.

Gabrielson was pleased with how the Warhawks responded after the defeat to Elkhorn.

"After the devastating loss, we had a team meeting and basically said the last dual will be for our pride and to go home with our heads up," he said. "A third-place finish, considering the one big loss to Elkhorn, would be something to hold our heads up for."

According to Gabrielson, it was a good day overall.

"We walked away placing higher than we were seeded," he said. "We had Brandon Goesch go 5-0 and three other guys go 4-1 (Danny Krause, Mike Knippen and Tyler Baran). Most guys went 3-2 on the day. It was the first time we wrestled the Elk Invite and we really liked the competition level. We know what to expect for next year now and know that we need to do much more work in the off-season if we want to be at the level of Elkhorn."

Earlier in the week, Germantown fell to multi-time North Shore champ Port Washington, 60-10, with Knippen improving his record to 22-3 with a pin at 195 to lead the way while Nick Aldridge also won. Gabrielson was pleased with the effort and pride his team showed.

Up next for the Warhawks are the Zelinski Memorial Duals held at Whitnall High on Saturday.

Menomonee Falls/Germantown Hamilton boys swim

The Indians cruised to a 143-38 Greater Metro/Classic 8 win over West Allis on Jan. 12.

Earning individual wins for Falls were John Seiler in the 200 free (1:54.96) and 500 free (5:11.84), Cal Weber in the 200 individual medley (2:19.15), Ryan Litzau in the 50 free (23.41), Matt Ciolkosz in the 100 butterfly (59.94) and 100 breaststroke (1:07.92), Mike Spankowski in the 100 free (53.53), and Brad Kruppe in the 100 backstroke (1:05.15).

In addition, the Indians swept all three relays including 200 medley (Ciolkosz, Paul Porter, Litzau and Sam Green, 1:50.67); the 200 free relay (Seiler, Green, Ciolkosz and Spankowski, 1:35.54); and the 400 free relay (Spankowski, Green, Litzau and Seiler, 3:34.52).

The Indians host their own invitational at Falls on Saturday, with diving at 10 a.m. and swimming at 1 p.m.

Germantown girls basketball

The Warhawks made a game effort of it against defending state champion and unbeaten Nicolet on Friday, falling by a 68-54 score.

Germantown (2-4 in league play and 2-7 overall) fell behind 19-9 at the quarter and were down 37-24 at the half but managed to maintain contact with the top-ranked Knights (6-0, 12-0).

Nicolet helped the Warhawks in their efforts by hitting only 15 of 33 free throws. Germantown had a hard time defending the Knights' active junior post Briana Gray who had 23 points to lead all scorers. The Warhawks had their traditional balance with 10 people scoring including Lauren Grotjahn with nine and Maggie Johnston with eight.

Germantown visits Homestead (2-8) at 7:30 p.m. Friday.

- Steven L. Tietz