Belleville Girls Basketball Starts Season With Two Impressive Wins

On Tuesday, November 16th, the Wildcats travelled to Argyle, which was pre-seasoned picked to finish 2nd in the Six Rivers-East Conference this season. The Wildcats came out with good energy to start and built a 9-0 lead early in the game. The Wildcats kept their intensity on, but ended up getting into some foul trouble in the first half which led to senior Alyssa Caskey moving from her forward position to guard play for many minutes in the first half and also saw many quality minutes from junior Lainey Winkers which allowed the Wildcats to continue to build to a 32-15 lead by halftime. In the second half, Coach Pharo said it was very similar to the first half with his team showing great energy and focus. At the end of the night, the box score showed that nine Wildcats contributed to the final 66-35 score victory for Belleville.
Belleville was led by Ava Foley with 13 pts and 5 rebounds, Callie Smith with 12 pts and 21 rebounds, Mickey Stampfl with 11 pts and 6 assists, and freshman Maddi DeSmet tallied 10 pts and 8 rebounds in her varsity debut.
Then on Friday, November 19th, Belleville traveled to Albany to take on the pre-season 2nd ranked team in Division 5 basketball. On this night, the Albany Comets came out very hot from the field and built a double digit lead in the first 6 minutes of the game over the Wildcats. Coach Pharo had to use a time out and completely change the game plan which saw the Wildcats run a different defense the rest of the game. This threw the Comets off and allowed the Wildcats to chip into that double digit lead. During their first-half comeback they had timely 3-pointers made by Kailey Prochaska, Mickey Stampfl, and Kenna Edge, and saw quality minutes played by freshman Maddi DeSmet when Callie Smith got into foul trouble. By the time the first half was over, the Comets' lead had been erased and Belleville went into the locker room with a 28-27 lead. The second half continued to see the game be very competitive with these two very quality teams and both teams took leads throughout the half. A few timely shots and key rebounds saw the Wildcats take control of the game in the last three minutes which allowed them to walk away with a very impressive 62-54 win over Albany.
The Wildcats were led by Ava Foley with 16 pts and 9 rebounds, Mickey Stampfl with 14 pts and 4 assists, and Callie Smith 11 pts and 16 rebounds.
The Wildcats are home to play Barneveld Tuesday, November 23rd. This will be Belleville Girls Basketball's first home game in 637 days.