State champions again: Green Bay Notre Dame girls basketball wins third straight WIAA title

ASHWAUBENON – Winning the last game of the season is so much better than the first.

The Green Bay Notre Dame girls are state basketball champions for the third consecutive season after beating Pewaukee 64-49 in the WIAA Division 2 title game Saturday at the Resch Center, avenging its only loss in yet another magical season.

It is the sixth school since the tournament started in 1976 to pull off a three-peat, joining Milwaukee Washington (1994-1996), Cuba City (2005-2007), Flambeau (2006-2008), Milwaukee Vincent (2007-2009) and Beaver Dam (2017-2019).

The Tritons (29-1) also moved into a second-place tie with Barneveld for the most state titles with six, behind only the 11 won by Cuba City.

Need more history?

Notre Dame set the D2 state record for most points scored in the two-game tournament with 140, surpassing the 135 Kimberly had in 1996. It set the assists record with a two-game total of 37, breaking the mark of 35 by the Papermakers in 1998.

“It’s so special every time holding up a gold ball, knowing that you are the best team in the state in the division,” Notre Dame junior forward and Wisconsin recruit Gracie Grzesk said. “Every year, it doesn’t get boring. We have a target every year on our backs and just coming in and playing as a team, there is nothing like it.

“It’s so much fun.”

Notre Dame trailed for only 22 seconds in the game after Pewaukee hit a 3-pointer in the opening minute, but when Tritons junior point guard Trista Fayta responded with her own 3, junior guard Sydney Whitehouse with a free throw and senior guard-forward Hope Barington with a layup, it took a lead it never would relinquish.

The Tritons had their way with Pewaukee inside, scoring 24 of their first 28 points in the paint and hitting 13 of their first 18 shots to take a 15-point lead with 7 minutes, 22 seconds remaining in the first half.

But even the best team in the state can have a lull.

Notre Dame scored just two points and had four turnovers in the final 7:21 of the half. As frustrating as that could have been for the Tritons, it turned out to perhaps be even worse for Pewaukee.

It couldn’t take advantage in any significant way, shooting 2-for-12 during the stretch and going the final 4:32 without a point.

Notre Dame walked into the locker room having survived an offensive power outage with only two points shaved off its lead.

“I mean, our kids are pretty tough,” said Pewaukee coach Jim Reuter, whose team fell to the Tritons in the title game for the second straight season. “They withstood that run, and because they really embrace defense and I think they believe that as long as we keep getting stops on defense, we are going to find a way to score. Find a way to make it happen. Come back and win the game possibly.

“The shots just weren’t falling. They are a very good defensive team. They don’t give you lots of easy looks. They make you earn everything you get.”

The Tritons built their lead to as many as 21 points with 12:40 remaining and led by at least 12 the rest of the way.

It’s an almost impossible task to come back from such a big hole against a team that plays defense the way Notre Dame can, especially after the players were challenged to step up by longtime coach Sara Rohde during a team meeting Saturday morning.

She wasn’t pleased with their performance in a 76-70 semifinal win over McFarland on Friday, which was the most points the team has allowed in a game since the 71 it permitted to Pulaski in March 2020.

That wasn’t going to fly for a second straight night.

The Pirates shot 39.1% (18-for-46) and were outrebounded 30-15, including 24-9 on the defensive end.

“I was really happy tonight to see how we came out and responded to that,” said Rohde, who has led Notre Dame to five state titles in her 12 seasons and has won 80.4% of her games. “I thought we really packed it in and made it hard for them to score.”

Notre Dame shot 62.2% (23-for-37), went 4-for-8 from 3, scored 38 points in the paint and had 18 assists on its 23 field goals.

Grzesk had 16 points, 7 rebounds and four assists, Fayta 13 points, 6 assists and 4 rebounds, Whitehouse 12 points and sophomore guard Peyton Musial 10 points, 9 rebounds and 5 assists.

“We knew that Gracie kind of had an advantage in the post, or whoever our post was kind of had that advantage,” Fayta said. “We knew that if we got to that post that they were possibly going to trap so guys were going to be open.

“Emphasizing and getting it to the post — you don’t always get it to the post — opens up a lot more for our team.”

Notre Dame was perfect the entire 2022-23 season after that season-opening 68-67 loss to Pewaukee in November, perhaps having the second undefeated season in program history and the first since 2001 ripped away because Fayta missed the game with an injury.

The Illinois State recruit and her teammates showed just how scary they are when everyone is healthy.

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Although Notre Dame will want to celebrate another title for a bit, it’s difficult not to peek toward next season and the biggest history yet that it could accomplish.

No team has won four consecutive state titles. Notre Dame has overcome the graduation of star players in each of the past two seasons and will have to do it again now that Barington’s prep career is complete.

The Tritons will have the rest of their team back, and who could blame them if they want to get greedy and do it all over again next year?

“I would think these two (Grzesk and Fayta) and everybody else in that junior class would want to go for four,” Rohde said. “But we know it’s never going to be easy, that’s for sure.”

This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Green Bay Notre Dame girls basketball wins third straight state title