Milwaukee, WI
Area girls basketball takeaways features All-American nominees and history made for Whitnall
Highlights: Arrowhead defeats Pewaukee in girls basketball, 68-65
Arrowhead defeated Pewaukee in a rematch of reigning WIAA girls basketball state champions Saturday afternoon, 68-65. Here’s a few highlights.
With the final couple of weeks of January to come, it feels like the girls basketball season is starting to hit that next gear as conference title races tighten and contenders truly start to separate themselves from the rest of the field.
We’ll take a look at the week that was around the greater Milwaukee area, including a pair of superstars who could join an exclusive group soon.
Pair of area stars named to McDonald’s All-American Game nominee list
Wisconsin has three McDonald’s All-American Game nominees this year, with two from the greater Milwaukee area. Hartford forward Makena Christian (Minnesota) and Pewaukee guard Amy Terrian (Michigan State) were both named to the nominee list, along with Hortonville star Rainey Welson (Maryland).
If one or both are selected to the game, which will be played April 1 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, they would join current Connecticut guard KK Arnold (Germantown, 2023), current Women’s Chinese Basketball Association player Sidney Cooks (Kenosha St. Joseph, 2017), current Dallas Wings star Arike Ogunbowale (DSHA, 2015) and current Oregon assistant coach Samantha Logic (Racine Case, 2011) as the only girls players from the area to participate in the game.
Christian has the Orioles flying as the leaders of the North Shore Conference with a 13-1 mark this season. She’s averaging 24.8 points, 9.8 rebounds, 2.9 assists and 2.9 steals this season. The Minnesota recruit also became the 40th player in state history to eclipse 2,000 career points earlier this season.
One-half of the Terrian twins also has Pewaukee where it usually is, atop the Woodland West standings at 13-2 this season. Through 14 games played this season, Amy Terrian is averaging 13.8 points, 4.9 rebounds, 3.3 assists, 2.7 steals and is shooting 47.7% from deep. She also became the program’s all-time leading scorer earlier in the season.
Whitnall caps perfect week after not playing at home for 56 days
The last time Whitnall played a home game, the Green Bay Packers still had seven regular-season games to play.
For the first time since Nov. 19, the Falcons hosted an opponent and extended their winning streak to seven games with a 69-24 rout of Racine Horlick on Tuesday night. The win streak now sits at nine games following a victory over Shorewood on Thursday (93-70) and a 71-21 drubbing of Cudahy on Friday night to improve to 13-1 on the season. The nine-game winning streak is the longest since the 2019-20 season for the Falcons when they won eight straight from Jan. 10 to Feb. 11, 2020. It’s only the second streak of that length since the 2012-13 season in program history.
Along with the perfect week, Riley Ward had a 30-point outing earlier in the week against Shorewood and then scored her 1,000th career point during a 21-point first-half performance in the rout of Cudahy. The Falcons will likely be favored against Brown Deer and Cudahy again next week to extend the win streak before a massive showdown next Friday against Pewaukee.
Wauwatosa East stays unbeaten, only two area undefeated teams left
There’s only two Milwaukee-area teams with zeros in the loss column as the three-day weekend arrives for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday: Wauwatosa East and Bradley Tech/Arts.
The Red Raiders improved to 15-0 with dominant performances against DSHA (69-36) and Brookfield Central (84-49) this week to stay unbeaten, while the Trojans improved to 12-0 with a 59-15 victory over Carmen Northwest on Thursday. Tech raced out to an eye-popping 48-6 halftime advantage and put it in cruise control to remain undefeated.
Tuesday’s win over DSHA marked the seventh time this season the Red Raiders have held an opponent to 40 points or fewer. Emma Close scored a game-high 24 points for Tosa East, while Mikaia Litza flirted with a quadruple-double. Despite a 3-for-11 shooting performance with eight turnovers, Litza still had 8 points, 6 rebounds, 8 assists and 8 steals for the home side.
Other gatherings including some tight title races and a statistical title chase
- As the regular season enters the home stretch, you can expect some title races to heat up. The Classic 8 Conference has four teams with a 5-2 mark or better in C8 play this season. Muskego still paces the field with an 8-0 mark after a 55-38 victory over Waukesha West on Friday. Kettle Moraine Lutheran remains the lone unbeaten (6-0) in the East Central Conference title chase with Winneconne on its heels at 5-1. Tosa East sits atop the Greater Metro Conference at 9-0 with Brookfield East (8-1) lurking just behind with one more meeting to go between the two.
- Salam sits perfect atop the Lake City Conference at 9-0 with Faith Christian not far behind at 8-2. The Prairie School leads the field in the Metro Classic Conference with Dominican (5-1) and Racine St. Catherine’s (4-2) in hot pursuit. The three-horse race in the Midwest Classic Conference is madness so far, as Lake Country Lutheran (7-0), Watertown Luther Prep (7-1) and Living Word Lutheran (6-1) all still have title hopes. Hartford leads the North Shore Conference, but don’t count out Whitefish Bay (8-1) and Homestead (7-2).
- The top of the Southeast Conference has a pair of unbeatens with Oak Creek (6-0) and Kenosha Bradford (5-0). Union Grove leads everyone in the Southern Lakes Conference at 7-0, but Westosha Central lurks with a 6-1 mark. Whitnall (6-0) leads the Woodland East with Greenfield (6-1) right behind, while Pewaukee (7-0) handed Pius XI (5-1) its first loss in Woodland West play this week.
- There’s another race around the area and that’s the statewide scoring title chase between Shorewood’s Serinity Metcalfe and Brown Deer’s Ameerah Grant. Both players are averaging at least 38 points per game this season with Metcalfe having a slight 0.3 average advantage (38.3) over Grant. Lakeland wing Kristina Ouimette is the only other player averaging at least 30 points per game this season across the state. Metcalfe has just one game below 30 points this season and four 40-point games, including a 52-point outing against Milwaukee Juneau on Dec. 10. Grant has been just as ridiculous with five 40-point games, including a 50-point performance this past Tuesday on 19-for-30 shooting in a win over St. Augustine Prep.
BY ALEXANDRA G STAHL AND AMRITA THAKKAR
Every year, Milwaukee Riverkeeper organizes one of the biggest volunteer-led cleanups in the city – a gargantuan effort that has Milwaukeeans out in droves to clean up the Milwaukee, Menomonee and Kinnickinnic rivers after the first of the spring rains. The science-based advocacy organization works for clean, swimmable, fishable and drinkable water in the Milwaukee River Basin year-round, but April is their biggest push, as they set up what is likely the largest volunteer-led event in the state.
For their 31st annual cleanup on April 25, however, the Riverkeepers had a goal that dwarfed every previous year – they wanted to break the world record for the world’s biggest river cleanup. With 124 clean-up sites this year (versus last year’s 100), they were confident that they had a good chance at the title.
It’s time to pick your Milwaukee favorites for the year!
“The people’s power is something pretty spectacular,” says Jennifer Bolger Breceda, executive director of Milwaukee Riverkeeper. “Our spring cleanup is really kind of a kickoff of spring to a lot of people. We have a lot of nuisance pollution in Milwaukee because of our winters, and the snow covers up a lot of the trash for a significant period of time. When it melts it becomes pretty noticeable, so it’s a perfect time to get out there and do the cleanup.”
Tru Earth, the presenting sponsor of the cleanup, originally approached Riverkeeper with the idea of breaking a world record, aiming to see if the title already existed or if they could create one. The organizations reached out to Guinness World Records, and it turned out there was already an existing world record for “Most Participants in a River Clean-up (multiple locations).” The record had previously been set at a cleanup of the Taff River in the United Kingdom, with 1,327 participants.
But applying to break the record was the easy part – once Guinness was on board, the real work began. The record had to be judged against the previous record, and it had to be done exactly the same way.
“We had to train more volunteers to support our other volunteers, to watch, witness and adjudicate them,” explains Bolger Breceda. “We also had an adjudicator from Guinness present on the day of the event.”
The extra layer caused some logistical challenges. While previous events were more casual, with volunteers showing up in their own time, Riverkeeper requested that volunteers show up early this year so everyone could start at 9 a.m. Every site captain was added to a text message chain, so that all sites started work at the same time.
The event drew over 4,923 volunteers and ended up with approximately 111,452 pounds of trash collected. While Guinness only counted 2,082 people due to their own adjudication standards, it still easily surpassed the previous record.
While Riverkeeper called for pre-registrations well in advance so they could organize for supplies, Bolger Breceda says that they didn’t put in any extra effort into recruiting the record-breaking number. “With the flooding and the rains a couple weeks before the clean-up, as well as the storm last August, people really wanted to clean up the river,” she explains. “There was a lot of trash, debris and litter, and the demand to clean, so to speak, was high.”
As always, the clean-up resulted in a number of strange finds – three toilets, two mattresses, five fire extinguishers, 39 tires, 11 construction barrels, six construction signs, six shopping carts, a golf bag with clubs and even a wheelchair.
The record was announced at Rock the Green at the Harley-Davidson Museum later that day. “It was a lot of work, but it was worth it to put Milwaukee on the map,” says Bolger Breceda.
MILWAUKEE — Milwaukee’s Festival of Flowers is returning to Riverwalk Commons at the Milwaukee Public Market this Saturday, running from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
The free event features a flower market with vendors selling fresh flowers, art, and handmade goods, along with live music on the Riverwalk Common stage.
Milwaukee Public Market
A new floral art installation from Botanical Collective will also be on display, serving as a photo opportunity for attendees. The installation builds on a similar display from last year’s event.
WATCH: Milwaukee’s Festival of Flowers returns for a second year with new additions
Milwaukee’s Festival of Flowers returns for second year with new additions
“So things that you might have seen last year are absolutely coming back. We have free live music on the Riverwalk Common stage. We have a flower market with vendors selling fresh flowers, art, handmade goods, all of that really fun stuff. Then we also have Botanical Collective last year made this beautiful floral art installation that also acted as a photo op. This year it’s going to look a little different, so we’re really excited to see what they put together,” said Paige Hammond with the Milwaukee Public Market.
Milwaukee Public Market
Also new this year, the festival will kick off with a free yoga class at 11 a.m. Attendees are asked to bring their own mat.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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