COMEBACK WIN … Avah Vaculik of Evergreen goes up for a shot with Wauseon’s Marin Leatherman closing in.
PHOTOS BY JACOB KESSLER / THE VILLAGE REPORTER
LONG RANGE JUMPER … Sophia Rupp launches a three-ball for Wauseon in Thursday’s NWOAL game at Evergreen.
By: Joe Blystone
THE VILLAGE REPORTER
publisher@thevillagereporter.com
METAMORA (January 15, 2026) – In the first eight minutes, everything looked really bad for Evergreen against Wauseon.
Sophia Rupp was scoring at will against the Vikings and Evergreen was 0-10 from the field, falling behind by nine.
Fortunately, for the Vikings, basketball games are 32 minutes in length, and Evergreen chipped away the rest of the way, getting a big break in the fourth quarter thanks to a technical foul, and chalked up a 39-35 league win over the Indians.
“We talked about the game was just possession by possession,” Vikings coach Josh Williams said. “We’ve been in this situation before; we’ve had a lot of adversity.
“We told the girls, ‘You aren’t going to get it all at one time, just do what we were doing, and we’ll get back in it’. It was just a hard grind, and we had a lot of people step up with monster performances.”
While Evergreen was firing blanks in the first quarter, Rupp was hitting shots like she was playing H-O-R-S-E.
The senior forward scored twice inside, bagged a deep triple and got a layup off a steal to vault Wauseon to a 13-4 lead after the first.
Ella Tule’s bucket in tight gave the Indians their biggest lead at 15-4 with 7:25 left in the half.
Avah Vaculik stuck a corner three-ball and Kyla Risner got to the rim to make it 15-9 but Wauseon came right back with Aizlynn Coronado hitting a jumper and Mia Barajas nailing a three-pointer to regain a double-digit margin at 20-9 with 2:00 on the clock.
Lanae Manz hit from deep to help the Vikings cut their deficit to 20-13 at the half, and that was the beginning of a Vikings defensive stand that held Wauseon to just 12 points in nearly the next 14 minutes.
Vaculik’s drive, then a Vaculik triple with 4:45 to go in the third, got Evergreen within 21-20.
“She looked like she was a little bit down after she missed a couple shots, and we told her, ‘Girl, keep going, they are going to fall,’” Williams explained of Vaculik’s big shot that got the Vikings back into the game. “That was a big boost for us and the other girls started to feed off that.”
The teams countered hoops the next four baskets with Marin Leatherman giving Wauseon a three-point lead to start the flurry and Lyla Radel finishing that trade-off of buckets with a layup off a steal with 2:30 left to keep the Vikings within a point at 25-24.
Manz brought Evergreen even at 26-all with 10 ticks left, but Coronado crossed half court uncontested and dropped a three-pointer from the volleyball line at the horn to give Wauseon a 29-26 lead.
Manz tied it 20 seconds into the fourth on long range, but Leatherman got the Indians back on top with 5:20 left.
With 3:25 left, the Vikings regained all the momentum. Bailey Lumbrezer was fouled by Barajas, and a technical foul put Lumbrezer at the line, where she dropped both to even the game at 31-31.
Radel scored on a runner through the key 15 seconds later to give the Vikings the lead for good.
“That was massive,” said Williams about the “T”. “Whenever you get the benefit of one of those, you hope you hit the free throws, which we did and then we score right after that to get a lead, then we get stop and another stop, we talked about those possessions, those stops defensively were really big.”
Rupp split two free throws with 2:25 left to get the Indians back to 33-32, but Wauseon misfired or turned the ball over the next five times down.
Risner and Manz canned 6-8 from the foul line in the last 55 seconds to extend the Vikings’ lead to 39-32, making Rupp’s triple at the buzzer a shot that only made the score closer.
Manz led the Vikings with 13 while Vaculik added 10, including seven in the third quarter when Evergreen went from eight down to even. Rupp led all scorers with 16.
After shooting just 3-19 in the first half, Evergreen (8-6, 1-2 NWOAL) shot 45 percent in the second half. Wauseon (9-5, 2-1 NWOAL) was 15-46 for the game, after shooting 6-13 in the first quarter.
WAUSEON (35) – Kissel 0; Fisher 0; Leatherman 4; Coronado 7; Sanford 0; Hamilton 2; Rupp 16; Tule 3; Barajas 3; Totals: 10-4-3 – 35
EVERGREEN (39) – Risner 5; Manz 13; Lumbrezer 4; Vaculik 10; Radel 7; Gleckler 0; Totals: 7-4-13 – 39
WHS 13 7 9 6 – 35
EHS 4 9 13 13 – 39