PEWAUKEE — The Black Hawk girls basketball team placed second in the Platinum Division at the Wisconsin Varsity Invitational July 14-15. The Warriors lost to two-time WIAA Division 2 state champion Beaver Dam 67-49 Sunday.
“I really felt the kids were representing themselves well,” Black Hawk head coach Mike Flanagan said.
The tournament was split into four divisions not based on population, but by projected talent — Platinum, Gold, Silver and Bronze. The Platinum Division featured 10 Division 1 teams (1,275 enrollment and higher), four Division 2 (839-1,274), plus Division 3’s Platteville (430) and Black Hawk (99).
“We had the opportunity to get into the Platinum Division and we decided to take the leap knowing that it was going to be pretty tough competition and not knowing how well we would hold up,” Flanagan said. “But the girls were able to get to the championship game and bring down a couple of pretty tough opponents.”
In order to get to the title game, Black Hawk had to go through Division 2 runner up New Berlin Eisenhower (58-50), which defeated Monroe in the state semifinal in March, and Appleton West (38-36).
“We had to play bigger than we are, which we’ve done before,” Flanagan said. “We certainly knew that losses at this tournament were likely when you make that kind of a jump. But we’ve got some pretty good kids and play so hard that I thought we took that next step towards building for next year’s squad. Facing really good opponents will bode well for us heading into next year.”
In the title game, Beaver Dam, which has five players receiving offers to play Division 1 college basketball, used a late first-half surge to take a 10-point lead at halftime, 34-24.
“You look at the first 11 minutes of the game — we had a 19-17 lead with about five minutes left in the first half and they made a push late,” Flanagan said. “I felt like when we were fresh and had our legs under us, at least for parts of the game, we showed that we could certainly hang with them. It became a fatigue factor and it affected us much more than it did them.”
Beaver Dam ended last season ranked No. 1 in the state and No. 63 in the nation according to MaxPreps.com. Monroe was 171 in the nation and Black Hawk came in at 793 after last year.
“You look at Beaver Dam and their size from player-to-player. And other than that, during the game they were subbing five at a time — five in, five out. They had no drop off. They just have so many kids that can shoot the ball. If you make one mistake they just make you pay,” Flanagan said. “Overall, their shooting and their size was an issue for us — as well as conditioning. We had played some pretty competitive games and were pretty dogged and tired by the end of that Beaver Dam game.”
Each team gets five contact days with their coaches during the offseason, and the Warriors reached the cap at the tournament.
“We used one for a tournament in Reedsburg, one for a tournament in the Dells and then these two contact days. You try to find a way to maximize the potential for using those to help your kids get better,” Flanagan said. The team used its first contact day at the beginning of the summer to get on the same page, pinpointing areas that needed the most growth.
The rest of the summer the Warriors will continue to weightlift and work on conditioning, according to Flanagan, and play in the Monroe summer league.
“We’re coming up on the fall and kids are going to play volleyball and you don’t want them getting basketball fatigue,” Flanagan said. “We’ve got a little bit left to do, but I feel like when we are ready to step away until November rolls around and hope they are raring to go and will still be hungry for it.”
