The UW-Whitewater Women’s Basketball team is already off to a great start, having won both of their first two games of the season. In doing so, one of the most prominent Warhawks on the team made a bit of history.
The Warhawks faced St. Norbert College at the UW-Stevens Point Tip-Off Saturday Nov. 11, and walked away with an 84-56 win. They started off the first quarter strong with an early lead, and only improved upon that leading up to the end of the first half.
“This game we wanted to come out with a lot more pressure and really get up and play our press a lot more,” head coach Keri Carollo said. “We just wanted to get out in the backcourt and make sure that we’re getting early pressure on the basketball and try to slow them down so we were really quick with the basketball.”
Their plan was successful, and they maintained their lead strongly for the duration of the game. A big aid was senior forward Aleah Grundahl. Although this was a strong and successful game for the team as a whole, she had a big success in her personal game.
Grundahl became the all time leading scorer in Whitewater women’s basketball history from this game. She led the team with 20 points, creating a total of 1,380 points in her career statistics, good to set the program record.
“It’s something that I knew is going to happen this year,” Grundahl said. “I didn’t know when but it’s something that I couldn’t even imagine doing without my teammates and my family and everyone that has helped me get to this point. I really can’t put words into it.”
Carollo also commented on Grundahl’s performance and achievement.
“I mean for Aleah, she’s very humble,” Carollo said. “She doesn’t like all the accolades and hype and all of that. She’s just a hard nosed working player. I’d say it’s a milestone, you know, it’s an amazing accomplishment, and it’s a testament to her hard work and how much she gives to the university and to our basketball program.”
Even with that accomplishment the team is still focusing on working hard to improve and continue the strong performance.
“I think the important thing is to make sure that we stay healthy and we stay together and we focus on you know, one game at a time and make sure that we’re not overlooking any of our opponents, because every game we play matters,” said Carollo. “And so I think that that’s kind of our approach and we want to just continue to improve every day and make sure that we’re playing the best basketball we can be playing in March.”
Whitewater will play their first few home games of the season this week when they host Ripon College Wednesday Nov. 15 in Kachel Gymnasium at 5:30 p.m. and then Carroll University for Parents Day Saturday Nov. 18 at 6:30 p.m.
