Still working for a win

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Onalaska girls basketball fell behind early and could not recover versus Trinity Tuesday night in a 46-21 contest by the lake.

Onalaska had trouble scoring consistently, held to two or fewer field goals in each period.

The Lady Tigers established a 10-point lead after the opening quarter that would grow slowly until the final whistle.

Trinity is now 3-5 in 23-3A and tied for fourth place, but has shown improvement with a 2-1 mark in the second half of district play under former Onalaska and current Trinity coach Ashley Sustaita.

“In the first game of district, my senior broke her wrist,” Sustaita said. “When a kid like that with that type of leadership goes down, it's hard. We're very young, so when she went down, I was starting three freshmen, a sophomore and a junior. We were just having to find a new identity. She actually got to play tonight for the first time.”

Trinity has plenty of athletes and should be much more dangerous over the final few regular season contests. They will have Anderson-Shiro at home and Coldspring in San Jacinto County to finish the schedule.

“Getting them to believe in their ability has been a battle,” Sustaita said. “They are so talented and so versatile in what they can do. They are bought-in 100%, but they just don't believe how good they are. I tried to tell them that they are so good. Next year and the year after, we are going to be scary because of the young talent that we have. They are just tapping in right now.”

Onalaska athletic director Nick Tyerman pulled double duty, leading both the boys and girls Tuesday.

“The girls, I thought, played really hard,” said Tyerman, filling in for Kenesha Saygo. “It is a difficult situation when you have to step in. They had a good practice with me yesterday, they gave me a ton of effort, and we got a lot of shot attempts, which was great. We had way less turnovers than normal for them, and that is a positive I wanted to see them have. I saw a lot of good growth in the girls, and I think they will keep doing better the last two games of the season.”

For Trinity, Bree Davidson led with 13 points, while Paetyn Jolly, Ariah English and Mariah Tyson each had six. Onalaska’s Karli Nemeyer had seven points, and Brailey Linear and Shaylan Linear each had four.

Playing with just six in the high school program after injuries and other attrition, the Lady Cat team has yet to win a district match after compiling several non-district victories. They have games at Crockett and at New Waverly to close the 2024-25 season.