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New London’s defense leads to playoff victory

Bulldogs advance to regional semifinals

By Erik Buchinger


The seventh-seeded New London girls’ basketball team relied on its defense to beat No. 10 seed Wausau East at home 52-35 in the WIAA Division 2 regional quarterfinals on Wednesday, Feb. 21.

The Bulldogs used a full-court press, which created turnovers and fast break points.

New London sophomore guard Meghan Besaw said she was confident the Bulldogs would have success attacking Wausau East’s offense.

“We practiced that a lot,” Besaw said after the game. “We had to get our conditioning in too in order to get up and down the court and not get tired.”

Wausau East scored the game’s first two points, but the Lumberjacks struggled to bring the ball up the floor, and New London capitalized to take a 13-3 lead.

The Bulldogs remained ahead by about 10 points throughout the first half, and New London went into halftime leading 28-20.

New London locked down defensively to begin the second half, holding Wausau East scoreless in the first seven minutes after halftime.

“We just put a lot of pressure on them and went right at it,” Besaw said. “We couldn’t just slow down. I know late in the first half, we kind of slowed down and got in foul trouble, but I think in the second half we brought it back up.”

The Bulldogs scored the first 11 points of the second half to take a 39-20 lead.

Wausau East was never able to cut the lead back down to single digits, as the Bulldogs finished with a 17-point victory.

Kali Rohan led New London with 14 points and knocked down all eight of her free throw attempts.

Besaw finished with 13 points with two 3-pointers in the victory but said she missed too many shots.

“I had a lot of bad shots, but I had some good ones,” Besaw said. “The key was just to keep shooting and not get down on myself.”

Kate Christian scored 12 points, and Megan Pankow added eight points for the Bulldogs.

New London will play No. 2 seed Lakeland Union on the road in Minocqua on Friday, Feb. 23 at 7 p.m. for a spot in the regional title game.

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