Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

SOLON – With leading scorer Karsyn Stratton unavailable for the season opener with an injury Clear Creek Amana coach PJ Sweeney wasn’t sure where the scoring production would come from.

Sweeney got his answer on Tuesday and it came from an unlikely source.

Sophomore Whitney Traetow poured in a career-high 17 points to lift Clear Creek Amana to a 47-35 win at Solon in the season opener for both teams.

“I honestly didn’t think I would be the one to step up because last year I was a really timid player,” Traetow said. “I was happy to step up tonight but there are definitely other players that played great and really stepped up their games too.”

Traetow scored the first five points of the game for Clear Creek Amana as the Clippers took an early 7-2 lead.

The 5-foot-6 sophomore guard put the game out of reach in the fourth quarter with eight consecutive free throws in the final 74 seconds as Clear Creek Amana won its third straight over Solon.

“Not having Karsyn the girls battled, they played hard and they battled,” Sweeney said. “They accepted the challenge. They knew Karsyn wouldn’t be playing and they accepted the challenge.”

Stratton accounted for nearly half of the Clippers scoring last season when she ranked third in Class 4A in scoring with 21.9 points per game. No other Clipper averaged more than seven. 

With Stratton sidelined with an injury Clear Creek Amana had six different players score at least five points on Tuesday.

“We had different girls step up,” Sweeney said. “Whether it was Jordan (Neely) playing defense, or Calia Clubb, I challenged her offensive rebounds and she did an awesome job on the board it was just a collective team effort.”

At the top of the list of players to step up on Tuesday was Traetow.

She averaged 2.5 points per game last season in a limited role but starred in her first career start.

Traetow had 10 of her 17 points in the final 12 minutes of a tightly contested game, all coming at the free throw line.

“It was hard because Karsyn is one of our best players and she is our leader and we were really nervous,” Traetow said. “I was really nervous, but I think it came out pretty well. We played as a team pretty well.”

Despite the nerves Traetow knocked down her first two shot attempts, including a 3-pointer that gave the Clippers a 3-2 lead they would never give up.

“It built my confidence to get those shots down early,” Traetow said. “That gave me confidence later on in the game.”

Clear Creek Amana led 11-9 after one quarter and 21-16 at the half.

Solon junior Jenna LaDage did everything she could to keep the Spartans in the game.

LaDage scored all 16 points for Solon in the second and third quarters and closed the third quarter on a personal 7-3 run to pull the Spartans within 30-25.

“I think she is a scorer,” Solon coach Jamie Smith said. “Jenna has done a great job, I’ve kind of been on her lately about her defense and I thought she played better tonight but again we need her to shoot.”

LaDage finished with a game-high 20 points but could never pull the Spartans even.

Solon got as close as 32-28 on a free throw by freshman Kaia Holtkamp with 5:13 left but LaDage had a 3-pointer rattle out seconds later and Clear Creek Amana scored the next three points to push the lead back to seven.

“We cut it to four with five minutes left and just kind of got out of rhythm,” Smith said. “It was hard then to get back and catch up.”

Junior Gracie Downes had eight points for Clear Creek Amana while Clubb, Neely, Meagan Harvey and freshman Morgan Etscheidt all have five.

Traetow took care of the rest hitting 10-of-11 free throws, including eight-of-nine in the final quarter.

“Last year she kind of the deer in the headlights look and she grew up tremendously tonight,” Sweeney said of Traetow. “You could just see it, she had a lot of confidence and she did awesome.”

The win spoiled the Solon debut for Smith who spent the past nine seasons as the head coach at Interstate 35.

Holtkamp had 11 points and seven rebounds for Solon to go with 20 from LaDage.

 “I thought we played hard, I really do,” Smith said. “I know that can be a cliché for a lot coaches but I think the effort was there and I thought we got good shots.”

Solon                          9    7   9  10  –  35

Clear Creek Amana  11  10  9  17  –  47 

Solon (35) – Saige Hauer 0-3 0-2 0, Kaia Holtkamp 5-12 1-2 11, Sara Ruzicka 0-8 2-2 2, Abby Smith 0-3 0-0 0, Jenna LaDage 7-13 3-5 20, MaKinley Levin 1-2 0-1 2, Team 13-41 6-12 35.

Clear Creek Amana (47) – Whitney Traetow 3-9 10-11 17, Calia Clubb 1-3 3-5 5, Jordan Neely 1-3 3-4 5, Allie Rummelhart 0-1 0-0 0, Gracie Downs 4-7 0-2 8, Meagan Harvey 2-9 1-1 5, Emily Sly 1-2 0-0 2, Morgan Etscheidt 2-5 1-2 5, Team 14-39 18-25 47.

3-point field goals – SOL 3-15 (Hauer 0-2, Holtkamp 0-1, Ruzicka 0-4, LaDage 3-7, Levin 0-1); CCA 1-5 (Traetow 1-3, Harvey 0-2). Rebounds – SOL 25 (Holtkamp, Smith 7); CCA 37 (Clubb 10). Turnovers – SOL 21; CCA 21. Total fouls – SOL 16, CCA 14. Fouled out – SOL (Ruzicka). Technical fouls – none.