Kristin Vieselmeyer drives around a Wray defender in Monday night’s Great 8 basketball game.
— The Holyoke Enterprise | Johnson Publications
Lauren Herman navigates through traffic under the basket to take a shot during Monday night’s basketball action.
— The Holyoke Enterprise | Johnson Publications
Elise Krogmeier, at left, brings the ball in from the baseline for a shot at the basket in Monday’s game against Wray.
— The Holyoke Enterprise | Johnson Publications
Wray upsets Holyoke in quarterfinals
The Holyoke girls basketball team saw its season come to an abrupt end Monday, March 15, with a 65-58 loss to Wray in the 2A state quarterfinals.
With a 15-1 record and the No. 1 seed in the state playoffs, coach John Baumgartner said, “It was a good season. It just didn’t end like we wanted it to.”
“They played hard,” he said. “We battled, but we just couldn’t get it done.”
On a positive note, Baumgartner said it was a good group to coach and they’re happy they got to finish the season. The 2020 state tournament was cut short due to the onset of COVID-19.
The pandemic made the 2021 season challenging as well, with mask requirements, limited spectators and a shortened season — all on top of Holyoke’s main gym undergoing renovation throughout the season.
Without the normal district and regional tournaments, the state playoffs were revamped into a 24-team bracket with five rounds of games spread over two weeks. All games were played at the higher seed except the championship this weekend, which will be in Colorado Springs.
As the No. 1 seed, Holyoke had a bye the first round Tuesday, March 9.
The Lady Dragons were set to host No. 16 Lotus School For Excellence from Aurora in the Sweet 16 round Thursday, March 11. About an hour before the game was supposed to start, Lotus notified Holyoke that they would not be coming to play.
Baumgartner said that Lotus had been misinformed about certain issues, and after giving them the option to reschedule the game for the next day, Lotus chose to forfeit.
On Thursday, two teams from Holyoke’s league faced off in the Sweet 16. No. 8 Wray knocked out No. 9 Sedgwick County to advance to the quarterfinal game in Holyoke.
The Great 8 games were originally scheduled for Saturday, March 13, but were pushed back to Monday/Tuesday due to a snowstorm that hit much of the state.
The Lady Dragons were coming off of an undefeated regular season and had beat Wray 61-55 just weeks earlier. A small group of family and friends were on hand in Holyoke’s old gym to cheer them on in Monday’s quarterfinal game.
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