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The question going into Tuesday night's Sauk Prairie at Dodgeville girls basketball game was what kind of game would it be?
It was pitting last year's Dodgeville girls' coach Josh Busch against his former assistant Mark Dooley - and a bunch of girls Busch had coached for the last three years.
The answer was that Dodgeville's D2 top ranked team found a battle on their hands as Busch and the Sauk Prairie girls had a plan to take away the Dodgers' strengths - a big one in the 3-pointer.
The Dodgers made just one of 10 from beyond the arc, but they made 25 of 32 free throws and came away with a hard-fought 64-52 non-conference win.
Sauk Prairie trailed 12-6 midway through the first quarter, but went on a 10-0 run thanks to good defense and the Dodgers missing some close-in shots and held a 16-12 lead at the end of one.
Dodgeville came up with its lone three pointer at the close of the first half - by Samantha Crowley - to knot things at 24.
Sauk junior Ali Roach hit 12 of her game-high 21 points in that first half. Sophomore Lydia Breunig added 14 on the night.
The Dodgers came out strong to start the third frame and closed that period with an 18-10 edge and a 42-34 lead. They led by 12-14 points a majority of that quarter.
Then came the free throw shooting.
Forced to foul to try to get back into the contest, Sauk put the Dodgers at the line 15 times in that final frame. The Dodgers made 14 of those, complimenting those with four buckets and a 22-18 advantage and the 64-52 win.
In the fourth, Samantha Crowley went 6x6 from the line, Kara Crowley 4x4 and Taylor Stanek and Megan Pluemer 2x2 each.
Hannah Jones scored 16 points (10 in the second half) on the night to lead four Dodgers hitting double figures.
Stanek popped in 13 (8 in the second half) while both Samantha and Kara Crowley hit 12.
"Josh is an excellent coach," Dooley said of his former mentor. "He knows our team. He got us playing faster than we like to. After all he coached several of these seniors since they were freshmen. We just had to adjust to what he threw at us."
"In the second half I felt we executed really well," the Dodger coach said. "Our 1/2 court defense really started to give them problems. That's something we talked about at halftime. Also I felt we moved our feet on defense better in the second half."
"We reached a little more than I would like us to," he added.
"Scoring wise we had four players reach double figures - that showed our balance. All the credit of this win goes to the girls. They all work really hard and it really paid off tonight."
"We attacked better in the second half and that got us to the free throw line where we did a great job," Dooley pointed out.
"I thought our senior leadership really showed tonight with Samantha and Taylor plus Claire Binsfeld and Ashley Chitwood came in and played great defense. Also, we have some very talent young girls like Kara and Hannah, Megan and Kennedy (Stumpf). Megan takes care of their bigs and Kennedy does all the little things out there. I couldn't be prouder of these girls."
The Dodgers host New Glarus in a non-conference contest Tuesday, December 30 to round out their 2014 part of this season.
SCORE BY QUARTERS
SP 16 8 10 18-52
D 12 12 18 22-64
BOX SCORE
SAUK PRAIRIE 52 (fg, ft, tp) Breunig 7-0/3-14, Marx 3-0-8, Rauls 0-2/2-2, Roach 7-4/4-21, Greenheck 2-0/2-4, Vieth 0-0/1-0, Bater 1-0/2-2, Henderson 0-1/2-1. Totals 20-7/16-52. F-24. FO-Greenheck, Selden. 3-pointers: Marx 2, Roach 3.
DODGEVILLE 64: Stanek 3-7/7-13, Jones 8-0/2-16, S. Crowley 1-9/9-12, Stumpf 1-0-2, K. Crowley 4-4/4-12, Binsfeld 0-3/6-3, Pluemer 2-2/4-6, Chitwood 0-0-0. Totals 19-25/32. F-17. 3-pointers: S. Crowley 1.