FIELD TWP- The North Woods girls had a disappointing early exit from the Section 7A tournament last Wednesday, with No. 5 seed Bigfork pulling a minor upset over the No. 4 seeded Grizzlies 55-52. But the team and fans still had something to celebrate, as senior River Cheney eclipsed the 1,000-point career scoring mark in her final game as a Grizzly.
Cheney needed just four points to reach a thousand, and she scored the magic goal at the 11:12 mark of the first half. Play was halted momentarily as Cheney delivered the game ball to her father in the stands and celebrated on court with her teammates and coaches.
Cheney’s bucket pulled the Grizzlies to within two of Bigfork at 12-10, but the Huskies continued to control the pace until North Woods pulled even on another Cheney bucket with 2:40 remaining in the half. North Woods scored on six consecutive possessions, getting scores from Talise Goodsky, Helen Koch, Tatum Barto, and Cheney to vault into the lead at 31-23 going into the break.
North Woods extended its lead to a dozen, 35-23, to open the second period, but scored only once over the next three minutes as the Huskies whittled the deficit to 37-33. The Grizzlies did their best to hold off the surging Huskies, but surrendered the lead at the 4:40 mark, 49-46. It was a barnburner the rest of the way, with North Woods trailing 53-52 when Head Coach Liz Cheney called time out with 56 seconds to play. The Grizzlies got off a pair of errant shots before turning the ball over and were forced to foul with 20 seconds left. Bigfork made both free throws, but North Woods could still tie with a three. The Grizzlies got off two long ball attempts, and on the second miss Goodsky was fouled on the rebound with 1.2 seconds left. A make followed by a miss and a quick putback would give North Woods the tie to send it to overtime, but Goodsky’s first charity missed the mark, and Bigfork walked away with the win.
Senior Helen Koch, who broke the 1,000-point career mark earlier this season, led the Grizzlies in scoring with 18 points. Cheney scored 14 and Goodsky had 11.
The Grizzlies were in it to the end despite having an off night from the field. Their overall shooting percentage was just 23 percent compared to Bigfork’s 37 percent, and North Woods shot just 14 percent from behind the arc, both marks well below their season averages.
The Grizzlies were without the services of one of their best three-point shooters, Brynn Chosa, something Cheney noted in her postgame comments.
“That last minute and a half going into halftime, that’s the energy we needed,” Cheney said. “We really missed Brynn tonight.”
Cheney said that Bigfork showed good discipline on offense and didn’t get rattled when North Woods pushed them up against the 35-second limit.
Cheney was happy that her daughter reached her career goal at home.
“She wanted to do it at home in front of her home fans, and I’m super proud of her,” she said. “She had something like 438 points that she had to get this season to make it, and that’s a large amount of points for a post like her to put up. At first, I thought it wasn’t going to happen, and then she started putting up 20 points, 24 points, and we’re like yes, this is doable.”
With the Grizzlies having lost fellow big Hannah Kinsey to graduation last year, Cheney became the focal point down low this season, which made achieving the scoring goal more of a challenge.
“She developed as a really strong post player, and almost every team that we came up against double-teamed her and tried to slow her down. That wasn’t something she was used to at all.”
But to combat the pressure, River Cheney said she added some new wrinkles to her game.
“All summer long I was looking up post moves because I knew I would end up being more of a primary post this season,” she said. “Once I got under the basket and in the games, it just came to me. It just happened to come naturally, which is amazing to me.”
River said it’s been special having her mom as her coach.
“I love her as a coach because she pushes me to my fullest potential,” she said. “I would say she pushes me more than everyone else sometimes. It’s a special bond we have with all of these memories. It’s been amazing to have her as my coach.”
What’s also been amazing for Cheney as a senior leader this season is how the team has come together.
“They’ve been supporting all of our seniors so much,” she said. “We have a lot of fun together and we always like to do stuff together – it’s just awesome. We were looking forward to this and we were hoping we would pull through but in the end it just wasn’t our luck.”
Coach Cheney took a moment to reflect on the Grizzlies’ season.
“It was a good year,” she said. “At 16-10 we had a better winning record than last year, so if every season I can get the girls to win a little bit more we’re on the right road. And we had 90 K-12 girls playing basketball at North Woods this year – that’s incredible. It’s a testament to my older girls, the varsity, those kids want to be like them. Our fourth grade team made it to the Pacesetters state tournament. There are some really cool girls basketball things happening here.”