Natalie Kussow's record-breaking celebration highlights girls basketball takeaways

Natalie Kussow’s night of celebration started with a pleasant surprise.

Minnesota forward Grace Grocholski, the former Kettle Moraine superstar and former Waukesha County all-time girls basketball leading scorer, sent a nice congratulatory message to her future teammate that was played prior to tip-off of Arrowhead’s 77-41 victory over Muskego to send the Warhawks to a perfect 13-0 on the season.

“That was so cool. I didn’t even know it was happening,” Kussow said with a smile and a laugh. “They told us we had an announcement and I had no idea it was from her. It was so cool.”

Kussow recently broke Grocholski’s county scoring record of 2,294 career points and if Jan. 16 is any indication of what the new record will sit at, it’s going to be a long time before it’s broken again. The future Golden Gopher tallied 33 points in the rout of the team that knocked them out of the Division 1 state tournament last spring. She has some big goals ahead for her and the unbeaten Warhawks, but joining the Milwaukee-area pipeline with Grocholski and former Hartford star Makena Christian next season at Minnesota is something Kussow can’t wait to be a part of next fall.

“I’m really excited. I’ve known Coach Dawn (Plitzuweit) for a long time, even when she was at West Virginia,” Kussow said. “I love the coaching staff and I’m so excited to get up there and actually play. I met a few of the other freshmen going and they’re great. … I played with Makena for two years in the same program (Wisconsin Lakers). I didn’t get to play with Grace, but we knew of each other and we’re all really excited to go up there and play with each other.”

It’s another accolade on the shelf of Kussow, who enters the gym on a daily basis under a Gatorade player of the year banner that displays her name from last season, and a 2025 team state girls track and field championship banner that she contributed toward from a season ago.

Arrowhead coach Ron Reichle has used just about every adjective known to a thesaurus over Kussow’s three-plus seasons with the Warhawks, but the one portion of her game that he appreciates the most involves when she’s not scoring 25-30 points a night.

“I think what gets lost is her making an effort to get her teammates involved because she’s got some really good teammates around her,” Reichle said. “Presley (Samz) and Natalie both can set the tone for us being who they are, but with Libby (Gilmore), Sidney (Zehner), Karina (Klemz), Ellie Peterson … Natalie trusts her teammates. She probably had four or five assists tonight. She trusts them, and that’s when we’re good and at our best.”

Hartford helps one of its own

Tuesday, Jan. 13, brought the third loss in the last four games for Hartford, but its 87-69 loss to unbeaten Arrowhead was much more than about the result. Angie Hall, a physical education and health teacher at the high school, was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) in October. The program, along with the Hartford and Arrowhead communities as a whole, raised over $21,000 for the Hall family, including Angie’s daughter Hayden, who plays for the Orioles. It’s a wonderful gesture not only from the Hartford community, but from the visiting Arrowhead community to show compassion and support to Angie and her family. It was much more than a basketball game and both communities deserve a massive shoutout.

Welcome to the 1,000/1,000 club, Amirah Taylor

Not only did Golda Meir senior Amirah Taylor help lead the Owls to a massive week in the Milwaukee City Conference last week, she became the first player in the history of the program to officially tally 1,000 career points and 1,000 career rebounds. She was also named one of the MCC’s players of the week with Reagan’s Ayouba Turay for the week of Jan. 4-10. Coincidentally, Golda Meir also extended its current winning streak to four games with a 53-42 victory over Reagan on Jan. 13. The Owls sit over .500 at 8-7 with an 8-1 mark atop the Milwaukee City Conference (Gold) heading into a back-to-back set of contests with Juneau and Bradley Tech on Jan. 19 and 20.

The streak is officially over for West Bend East

It happened, West Bend East. It actually happened.

For the first time since Feb. 21, 2023, the West Bend East program won a girls basketball game with a 40-32 victory over nearby rival West Bend West to snap a 41-game losing streak. The Spartans were also the last team the Suns defeated in a regional contest almost three years ago and Jan. 16 brought the end of a losing streak that also spanned 27 straight games across North Shore/Glacier Trails games.

For a program that canceled almost its entire 2023-24 season after just two games and went 16-35 across the previous two seasons before that, the win had to feel like a giant boulder off the backs of so many people.

Conference leaders through Jan. 16

Here’s a look at the area’s conference leaders through Jan. 16:

Classic 8: Arrowhead (13-0, 8-0); Greater Metro: Wauwatosa East (14-0, 8-0); Metro Classic: Dominican (12-1, 4-0); Midwest Classic: Lake Country Lutheran (5-5, 3-0); Milwaukee City (Blue): Vincent (9-0, 9-0); Milwaukee City (Gold): Golda Meir (8-7, 8-1); North Shore: Whitefish Bay (13-2, 5-0); Southeast: Franklin (8-7, 4-0), Kenosha Indian Trail (11-2, 4-0); Woodland (East): Whitnall (11-4, 7-0); Woodland (West): Pewaukee (11-1, 6-0).

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: High school girls basketball news and notes in the Milwaukee area

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