Chassell’s Paige Danison lines up a free throw on Monday in a game against the Wakefield-Marenisco Cardinals at the Ed Helakoski Gym in Chassell. Behind Danison is teammate Megan Holombo (10). (Eddie O’Neill/Daily Mining Gazette)

CHASSELL — The Chassell Panthers girls’ basketball squad opened 2025 with a tough 47-31 loss to the visiting Wakefield-Marenisco Cardinals on Monday.

While the Panthers showed signs of strong play here and there, they were plagued by poor rebounding and too many turnovers.

While Wakefield’s coach Alex Meatus said it wasn’t his girls’ best game, he was happy to come away with the win.

“We just kept fighting,” he said. “The girls never gave up. We are a good rebounding team. We work on that and that certainly made a difference tonight as we are not a very strong shooting team.”

While the Panthers were struggling to get one shot up on offense, the Cardinals (4-4) were getting at least two or three, and sometimes more, under the basket. Big bodies and blocking out were key for the Cardinals on both ends of the court.

After the Cardinals scored first, this one was tied at three and ended with Wakefield up 16-10 after one. That morphed into a 27-17 lead at half and the Cardinals just kept rolling.

They outscored the Panthers 20-14 in the second half limiting them to nine and just five points respectively in the third and fourth quarters.

Emma Choronzy led the scoring for the Cardinals with 14 points.

“She gets a game ball for her shooting and so does Noelle Grace for her strong play on both sides of the court,” said coach Meatus.

Paige Danison led the scoring for the Panthers with 15, and Megan Holombo followed with eight.

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