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As was said in "A League Of Their Own," there is no crying in baseball.
But basketball is a different story.
When Barneveld coach Jim Myers walked into the locker room to talk to the Golden Eagles before their Division 5 state championship game with Wisconsin Rapids Assumption Saturday he found his 6'2" senior center Maggie Oimoen with tears streaming down her face.
It wasn't because she was afraid to face the only team that had beaten the Eagles this season. It was because she realized this would be her very last high school basketball game.
"I told her earlier in the year she couldn't cry until her last game," Myers said. "I guess I should have said not until after her last game."
The tears went away and when Oimoen entered the game against the Royals it wasn't until she had scored a career high 17 points on a perfect eight for eight shooting from the floor, stopped up the middle on defense and outmuscled two 6'2" girls for six rebounds that she could say goodbye to her high school basketball career, and that was with a 59-43 win and a second consecutive state championship.
It was a new entry in the Maggie Oimoen basketball book for Myers.
"She has worked very, very hard the past four years," Myers said. "We had to stay on her and challenge her to work on her self motivation. She ended her career on the highest possible way."
One of the testimonials to the maturity level she has reached was defined in the third quarter. Oimoen has spent many minutes on the bench during her career with foul trouble and she picked up her fourth with 1:32 remaining in the third frame.
But instead of letting it affect her performance she continued to play as if she had no fouls and finished the game for the Eagles.
Two of her baskets came on assists by Rachel Slaney as the duo worked the hi-lo to perfection.
Oimoen's output was a perfect compliment to the play of junior guard Hannah Whitish who led the Eagles with 23 points and set a tournament record with 48 markers over two games. She opened the game with 12 of Barneveld's 18 first quarter points, scored two more in a six point second quarter and had 14 of the 24 Eagle points in the first two frames.
Hannah Whitish went on to score 10 more the second half but it was Oimoen who went off for nine straight points in the third quarter that moved the score from 31-21 to 37-23. From then on it was play your game and protect the lead for the Eagles.
One of the assignments Myers gave the girls was to stop 6'1" junior forward Gena Grundhoffer who was a Marawood Conference first team choice and player of the year. She came into the game averaging 20.5 points per game and put in 14 against South Shore the day before in just 18 minutes on the floor.
Mia Whitish, a 5'9" Barneveld sophomore, drew the assignment of harassing Grundhoffer and she frustrated her so much that she was limited to four points before fouling out with 2:23 left in the game.
The other assignment was to collapse on the post when 6'2" Olivia Skibba had the ball.
"We wanted to make them beat us from the outside," Myers said.
But the outside game never materialized for the long hall. Macyn Krings had a trio of three pointers and Macie Zurfluh had one as the Royals were successful on four of 11 triple tries.
Slaney had gas left in the tank in the fourth quarter with four rebounds, a steal and four points. Oimoen got four points to round out her scoring and the Eagles finished it at the free throw line. They picked up five of six free throws with Mia Whitish hitting one for two to start it then Slaney and Hannah Whitish swished two tries each.
Mia Whitish scored the final points of the game with her basket with 36 seconds left ending scoring for both teams.
Joe Birkhauser, who guided the Royals to a 52-51 win against the Eagles at JAG earlier this season for Barneveld's only loss simply said, "They just beat us."
"We needed to score more than 13 points the first half," he added. "We knew what we would get from them and they knew what they would get from us. When Barneveld gets a lead they are a hard team to come back on."
Slaney said after the game that the revenge factor played a small role in the way the Eagle players approached the game.
"It was in the back of our heads," the leading scorer in Barneveld girls basketball history said. "They put up a fight but Hannah took care of the ball and we all knew what needed to be done so we did it."
No one scored in the second quarter until 2:40 left to play when Hannah Whitish found the basket. Barneveld outscored the Royals 6-5 in the frame.
"Defense played a big part of that," Myers said.
Oimoen agreed and said the girls worked at keeping each other up during the drought.
"We had to have everyone step up and that won us the game," said Hannah Whitish.
Myers said there was pressure to repeat and the girls started working on it when they left the Resch Center last year.
He credited the seniors---Amanda Roberts, Slaney and Oimoen---with working so hard and setting the bar for others.
"They made Barneveld Basketball where it ended up today," he said. "This championship is all on them. I will miss them when they walk out the doors at Barneveld high school later this year."
SCORE BY QUARTERS
A 10 5 17 11 43
B 18 6 18 17 59
BOX SCORE
ASSUMPTION 43: (fg-ft-tp) Gena Grundhoffer 2-0-4, Oliva Skibba 6-0-12, Macyn Krings 3-0-9, Autumn Linzmeier 2-2-6, Macie Zurfluh 4-3-12, Gracie Wendels 0-0-0, Colette Stoflet 0-0-0, Carsyn Bushman 0-0-0, Allyse Sullivan 0-0-0, Erin Sullivan 0-0-0, Rose Crowns 0-0-0 Totals 17-5/13-43 Fouls-20
BARNEVELD 59: Mia Whitish 1-4-6, Rachel Slaney 3-3-9, Kelsee Fargo 0-0-0, Hannah Whitish 6-8-23, Mattie Schave 1-2-4, Abigail Sutter 0-0-0, Courtney Skaife 0-0-0, Abigail Bahr 0-0-0, Taylor Owens 0-0-0, Sarah Cannoy 0-0-0, Amanda Roberts 0-0-0, Molly Malin 0-0-0, Maggie Oimoen 8-1-17 Totals 19-18/25-59 Fouls-20
3 point goals:
Assumption (4) Krings 3, Zurfluh 1
Barneveld (3) Hannah Whitish 3