The Columbus Christian girls basketball team had huge efforts by its star seniors and a 19-rebound game by junior center Tori Robinson in defeating Indianapolis HomeSchool Trailblazers 63-47.
“It was the best game we’ve played,” said Columbus Christian coach Ron Bridgewater. “This was a team that beat us by 36 last year.”
Bridgewater said his players wanted to make a statement. “They absolutely did,” he said. “It was a very emotional night being Senior Night.”
Crusaders senior Macy Wingham knocked down 22 points. “When a girl like that puts up 22 when the entire defense is designed to stop her, that’s pretty awesome,” Bridgewater said.
Senior Rachel Warren scored 18 points and senior Kayleigh Reed added 13.
“Rachel just wanted it and she played hard with confidence,” Bridgewater said. “Kayleigh hit some shots early and played with so much confidence.”
Morristown ends Lancers’ season
MORRISTOWN — Tournament host Morristown edged Edinburgh 41-37 to set up a Class A Morristown Sectional final game against Greenwood Academy tonight at 7:30 p.m.
Morristown (16-8) took an early lead but Edinburgh (5-19) battled back to make it a close game.
In the fourth quarter the Lancers had a couple of chances to go ahead or tie the game in the final two minutes but were undone by offensive miscues.
“This team battled so hard tonight and I couldn’t ask more of them,” Edinburgh coach Amy Macy said. “We just had a couple of mistakes late maybe from inexperience.
“Sometimes in that situation it would help if they were a little less unselfish.”
The physical battle led to a scare for the Lancers when Brianna Howard, the team’s leading scorer at the time, had to leave the game after hitting her head on the floor while fighting for a rebound with 2:14 left in the first half. She returned in the third quarter.
Howard led Edinburgh with 13 points while Mariah Weddle had 14 rebounds.
Owls can’t handle Stars
JEFFERSONVILLE — With several good practices this week, Seymour girls basketball coach Jason Longmeier was expecting a strong performance against two-time defending state champion Bedford North Lawrence on Friday night in the Jeffersonville Class 4A Sectional.
The Stars wouldn’t allow that to happen as they jumped on top 17-2 after the first quarter, then increased their lead to 39-9 at the half and ran to a 72-27 win.
Seymour shot 1-for-10 and committed six turnovers in the opening period.
Those numbers left the Owls with too big of a hill to climb against the No. 1 ranked Stars.
“I thought they took the attack to us, and we were kind of on our heels, and didn’t counter-punch the way I expected we would counter-punch,” Longmeier said. “I thought we had a good week of practice, I thought the girls were focused. I thought we would come in here and play better than we did. At then end of the day it just wasn’t our day.”
The Owls had 11 turnovers, and shot only 4-for-21 in the first half.
“(BNL) is so good defensively that they put us behind the eight-ball and really forced us high out on the perimeter, and took a lot of our drives away, and I felt the entire first half we were one dribble shy,” Longmeier said. “I thought if we could have got one more dribble to the basket then we would have put some pressure on them to maybe commit some fouls, or get some baskets, and we just pulled up on it a little bit slow each time.”
Morgan Ritz scored five points each in the third and fourth quarters and topped the Owls with 10 points, while Fee was the top rebounder for her team with four.
The Owls finished 17-7 on the 2014-15 campaign.
BOYS BASKETBALL
Crusaders celebrate senior night
Columbus Christian celebrated its Senior Night with a 105-49 victory against visiting Northpointe Christian.
Crusaders coach Kevin Roth started his five seniors, Chris Noblitt, Josh Miracle, Austin Straub, Nick Bridgewater and Jacob Day and they rushed off to a 24-16 first-quarter lead and never looked back.
“It was a joy to watch the guys play,” Roth said. “We just worked the ball and had fun playing together.”
Columbus Christian had 51 rebounds and 27 assists in the game. Miracle was the leading scorer with 25.
