'Exactly what we wanted': Laconia girls basketball team rolls past Colfax, will face top-ranked Aquinas for state title

ASHWAUBENON − There's no question Molly Duel would start for a number of girls basketball teams in the state.

The 5-foot-7 Laconia junior has high basketball IQ, plenty of athleticism and a knack for annoying the heck out of anyone she guards as a defender. She's pretty good with the rock, too.

As it is, she's the top reserve on a talented Laconia team that never trailed in its 58-35 victory over Colfax in a WIAA Division 4 state semifinal game Thursday at the Resch Center.

Laconia (26-3) will play La Crosse Aquinas (28-1) in the title game Saturday following the D5 championship, which starts at 11:05 a.m. Aquinas beat Mishicot 79-55 in the other semifinal.

Duel said she "enjoys" her role as the team's uber reserve.

"Obviously we have those top five girls that are really good at starting," Duel said. "But just coming in and bringing the energy and spark that we need and bringing defense is probably something that I really enjoy doing."

Duel finished with 13 points on 5-of-6 shooting and also led the team in rebounds (nine) to go along with three assists.

"There's only five girls that can start and we have a bunch of kids who could start for a lot of other teams," Laconia coach Chris Morgan said. "Molly comes in off the bench and I'm a firm believer in bringing energy off the bench and Molly does a great job with that. She's phenomenal on defense and with her tandem with Aubrey Leonard, it just works out really well. You get Aubrey out there dogging right away and the first two to three minutes she expends a lot of energy and you insert Molly Duel and you don't skip a beat. So it's just great having a kid like Molly and somebody so unselfish.

"Every kid wants to go out there and start because you get a little more glamour and things like that, but Molly has done a great job of relishing that role of coming in off the bench and being that shutdown defender."

Laconia never trailed against Colfax and the Spartans led 30-19 at the half.

Tierney Madigan led the Spartans in scoring with 19 points on 7-of-12 shooting. Laconia shot 48.9% (23-of-47) from the field for the game and also held a 30-23 rebounding advantage along with a 36-18 edge in the paint.

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The Spartans' bench, led by Duel, outscored Colfax 26-9.

McKenna Shipman led Colfax with 17 points, but Colfax shot just 31.7% from the field (13-of-41) and had trouble against Laconia's zone defense at first and the Spartans' man defense later.

"I'm just really proud of the girls," Morgan said. "They played really hard on defense as we always do. We hang our hat on our defense and we started out in the 1-3-1 and thought it was good. But we lost (Shipman) there and she had a great game, but we couldn't find her in the 1-3-1 zone. She was really good in the midrange, so we switched to man and kind of locked her down. We put (Duel) and Payton Morgan on her and kind of shadowed her everywhere."

Laconia will appear in the championship game for the second consecutive season and it knows Aquinas, the top-ranked team in D4 in the final Associated Press rankings, will present a big challenge.

"This is exactly what we wanted. We wanted to be in this position," coach Morgan said. "We didn't look past Colfax in the first place, but now that we have this game behind us we're going to look forward to Aquinas. They're a phenomenal team and they come out with pressure. And the key for us is handling the pressure. They're very physical on the ball and off the ball. If we can go out there and handle that, I think we'll be OK."

Laconia 58, Colfax 35

Colfax (21-7): Olson 3, Hydukovich 6, Shipman 17, Bowe 3, Anderson 1, Niggemann 5. 3-pt: Shipman, Bowe, Niggemann. FT: 6-10. Fouls: 9.

Laconia (26-3): Vande Berg 2, Madigan 19, Leonard 6, Morgan 3, Keel 2, Engel 9, Duel 13, Taplin 4. 3-pt: Madigan 2, Engel, Taplin. FT: 8-9. Fouls: 12.

This article originally appeared on Fond du Lac Reporter: Laconia girls basketball team reaches WIAA state title game vs. Aquinas