For the Waukee Northwest girls basketball team, it’s been a season of ups and downs.
The Wolves started off the year with a loss to an out-of-state team followed by three straight wins. Northwest dropped the next two games, against Johnston and Valley. And now they’ve strung together a two-game winning streak heading into the winter break.
After beating Waukee on Tuesday, the Wolves eased past Southeast Polk, 73-43, on Dec. 19.
“The start of a new season, you expect some inconsistencies,” said head coach Sam Powell postgame. “We’ve been kind of up and down, and now it’s nice that we’re starting to see some consistency.”
Consistency is difficult to come by in the Central Iowa Metropolitan League (CIML), even with a starting lineup full of players who spent several seasons in the starting rotation together. The Wolves needed to make adjustments before the season even began, finding a way to replace Leah Janulewicz, who started every game last season.
Her starting spot went to sophomore Sadie McCann, who – as a freshman – was the first off the bench in all 24 of Northwest’s matchups last year. McCann scored 16 points against Southeast Polk, the second most on the team.
But Janulewicz’s absence is felt in other ways.
“Leah brings those intangibles,” Powell said. “She’s one of our leaders on defense, and we are sorely missing her in games where we’re playing teams that are a little more athletic.”
The good news for the Wolves, though, is that this roster is packed with players who can make an impact.
So, despite missing one of their top players to start the season, the Wolves have still found ways to win.
Romey Croatt was the key against Southeast Polk. She scored a game-high 20 points – one of five Northwest players to finish in the double digits – including nine points in the third quarter, which was nearly half of the Wolves’ point total in that frame.
Despite double-digit performances from several key pieces of the lineup, Powell still managed to rotate in his entire bench – putting 14 total players on the floor throughout the nice.
And with a three-game schedule the week before break – the Wolves play on Saturday – Northwest needed to give its starting lineup as many breaks as it could.
“We knew we were going to be fairly deep,” Powell said. “There’s a lot of kids on the bench that are really good kids, but there’s no way we can play all of them. But tonight, we were hoping to save some legs, go deeper into the bench, and we were able to do that tonight.”
Alyssa Hertel is the college sports recruiting reporter for the Des Moines Register. Contact Alyssa at ahertel@dmreg.com or on Twitter @AlyssaHertel.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Waukee Northwest girls basketball storms past Southeast Polk
Reporting by Alyssa Hertel, Des Moines Register / Des Moines Register
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
