HARTFORD — It was the moment a budding hoop star dreams of: Championship game, final seconds, game on the line, ball in hand. Steady, calm and emotionless to the untrained eye —the same demeanor since her first varsity game as a freshman — Albany’s Alana Durtschi was ready for the moment at the WIAA Division 5 sectional championship at Hartford High School.
Coming out of a timeout with 23.5 seconds left and tied with Wisconsin Rapids’ Assumption at 45-45, Durtschi took the inbound and bided her time. With 8 seconds left, she crossed over her defender and drove to the paint with her right hand. As she neared the blocked, two off-ball defenders crashed down to help, but avoided fouling her. Durtschi’s layup went through the net with 7.6 seconds left, bringing the Albany-Monticello faithful into a raucous celebration.
“It’s kind of what I’ve dreamed of, to be able to take the shot at the end,” Durtschi said. “I knew that my teammates had faith in me, so I just put my head down and I tried to get to the rim and finish and give this team a chance to play another game.”
Assumption used its final timeout with six seconds left but could not get a shot off, sending the newly formed AM co-op, self-dubbed the “Space Stallions”, to the state tournament.
“It’s just crazy — I don’t even know what to do, I’m just so excited,” Monticello sophomore guard Molly Olson said. “It’s amazing — definitely a dream come true. Just incredible.”
The pivotal game pitted the third-ranked Royals (26-3) against fourth-ranked AM (25-3). The first half was tightly contested with seven lead changes and four ties. Assumption’s press gave the Space Stallions fits early on, but once they were able to control the pressure and half-court traps, the scoring was easier to come by.
“Our previous experience against Pec-Argyle really helped us in this situation, so we knew how to handle the pressure, break their press and get into the half-court,” Durtschi said.
AM went up by as much as eight points with 2:21 before the break, and led 23-18 at halftime.
Assumption is a solid program well-known at the D5 level around Wisconsin. The Royals won the state title in 2021, finished runner-up in 2022 and were knocked out in sectional semifinal a year ago. AM’s players and coaches knew that a five-point lead likely wouldn’t hold unless they held strong and worked even harder in the second half.
“We knew they work very hard and are going to pressure you,” AM head coach Derik Doescher said. “We felt like we had to do what we do. We had to get up there, make them work and pressure them. I felt like we did that.”
Assumption did, in fact, rally to open the second. The Royals scored 11 straight points out of the gate on 3-for-3 shooting and took advantage of three straight AM turnovers. Doescher used two timeouts in the first four minutes of the half to try to steady his stampeding Space Stallions and get them back into orbit. Durtschi was the first to follow suit, driving to the hole with 13:23 left to give AM its first points of the half.
“We knew it was going to be a game of runs and that we were going to have to stay calm,” Durtschi said.
Durtschi’s bucket keyed a 9-2 AM run, giving her team the lead back at 32-31 with 10:44 left in regulation. Assumption responded with a 3-pointer from Jordyn Jaglinski and a transition bucket from leading-scorer Sarah Shaw. The Royals held onto the lead for nearly the rest of the game, going up by as much as seven points.
“I was yelling at everyone telling them ‘Let’s go, we can do this. It’s there, we just need to go for it,’” said Monticello junior Dalana Trumpy, who had 11 points and three key rebounds down the stretch in the second half.
Avary Briggs and Abby Hollis hit back-to-back 3s for AM, bringing the score back to within a point at 41-40 with 5:28 remaining. The two teams traded baskets over the next two minutes, and Assumption called a timeout with 3:25 left and leading 45-42.
“We knew we had to stick to the game plan. We just had to believe in ourselves and just stick with it,” Doescher said. “Really what it came down to was we gave ourselves a chance.”
Trailing by three with just over two minutes remaining, Molly Olson dribbled toward the paint, then stopped, pivoted and found Durtschi open for a corner three, tying it at 45. Both teams traded possessions but neither scored before Durtschi’s final lay-in to seal the game.
“She just took over down the stretch. She’s special — I know I’ve said that for four years. She’s not the flashiest player, she’s not the most athletic player, but I wouldn’t trade her for anybody,” Doescher said. “She’s fundamentally sound and the best leader you could ask for. We’re not going to the state tournament two years in a row without Alana Durtschi.”
Durtschi, the Six Rivers East co-player of the year, led all scorers with 15 points, including 11 in the second half. She also had nine rebounds. Briggs seven points, Hollis six, Anna Ellinger five and Olson three.
Assumption had four players averaging double figures during the season, but the top three were held below their average. Shaw (15.6) was held to 12 points, Jaglinksi (14.1) to nine and Anna Schooley (12.7) to eight. Addi Vollert (11.1) scored 11.
WIAA DIVISION 5 SECTIONAL SEMIFINAL:
ALBANY-MONTICELLO 65, SHEBOYGAN CHRISTIAN 36
COLUMBUS — Two days before punching their ticket to state, the Space Stallions ran away with a win in the sectional semifinal.
AM opened the game on an 11-0 run over the first two minutes on perfect 4-for-4 shooting, which included three 3-pointers, with four different players hitting baskets. Hollis drained a 3 just 27 seconds into the game, then Olson duplicated it just 22 seconds later. Briggs made a move to the basket at the 16:27 mark, and just 24 seconds later after a turnover, Durtschi buried another 3.
“It was a red-hot start,” Doescher said. “We talked about it before the game and at halftime — for the seniors, this is it. You’re given this opportunity, but nothing about tomorrow is guaranteed.”
The Eagles (18-9) slowly crept back into the game, scoring 10 straight points as AM went nearly 4 1/2 minutes without a score. High-pressured tournament games have their share of scoring runs, and Doescher said that if a team can withstand that initial blow and come back with another one, it not only balances it out, but keeps the mistakes from snowballing. A lot of that skill comes in the form of level-headedness and court-IQ.
“It comes with experienced people, like Briggs and Durtschi and Hollis. We’ve got experienced players, and I just trust that they’re going to make the right decisions,” said Doescher, who has coached his teams to the sectional final in four straight seasons. “For our Albany girls, they’ve been on this stage four years in a row.”
By halftime, the Space Stallions had pushed their lead back to 12 points, thanks in part to a 10-2 run over the final 5:22 of the half.
“We just had to make sure we keyed in on some of their best players and had good help defense,” Briggs said.
Durtschi and Briggs each had eight points in the frame for AM, while Trumpy added another six. Sheboygan Christian turned the ball over 14 times, while AM gave it away just four times.
In the second half, the Space Stallions rocketed away from the Eagles in short order. After Sheboygan Christian scored five points in the first minute of the second half, AM went to work, outscoring the Eagles 18-4 in a nine-minute stretch, including 15 in a row. By that point, the rout was on at 50-29.
“Part of our philosophy is wearing teams down. If we are using timeouts when Sheboygan was making runs at us, we’re also letting them catch their breath. We felt we had the deeper bench, so we were going to keep going at them — pressing them, picking it up on offense and trying to wear them down,” Doescher said.
Briggs played a vital role in the game, hitting four 3s herself and finishing with 14 points.
“Briggs has been much quieter points-wise this year than she was last year as a junior, but she’s accepted that role with the Monticello scorers coming in (Trumpy and Olson),” Doescher said. “(Briggs) finds other ways to dictate the game and help us out — and that’s just that unselfishness.”
Durtschi, a senior, led the way with 16 points, but her 11 rebounds proved vital.
“Any game can be your last and you have to go out there and give it your every effort. I’ve really been trying to crash offensive rebounds and get those extra possessions because that can be the difference in the game,” she said.
Hollis scored 11 points, Trumpy had eight points and five rebounds, Olson and Anna Ellinger six points each, and Myah Johnson four. AM hit 10 3s in the game, compared to just one from the Eagles.
