Staff Reports
NEW ALBANY — The Columbus East girls basketball team is back on top of the Hoosier Hills Conference mountain.
The Olympians clinched at least a share of the conference title Saturday afternoon with a 79-60 win at New Albany. The victory gave East its first HHC title since winning four in a row from the 2004-05 throughh 2007-08 seasons.
The Olympians (11-5, 6-0) can win the title outright and finish unbeaten in the conference with a win at home against Jennings County on Thursday. The Panthers and Bedford North Lawrence are tied for second in the HHC with one loss each, and a Panther win could force a three-way tie for the championship.
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“We want to finish it out,” East coach Danny Brown. “We want to win it outright. We don’t want to share it.”
Saturday, the Olympians led only 17-15 after one quarter and 32-26 at halftime before outscoring the Bulldogs (5-12, 1-4) 47-34 in the second half to pull away.
“We didn’t play our best game today,” Brown said. “There was not a lot of defense played today on either side, but we’ll learn from it.”
Junior Koryn Greiwe had 19 points and five steals to lead East. Greiwe passed Allyson Bunch, who played for the Olympians from 2010-14, for fifth place on the school’s all-time scoring list and now has 1,221 career points with more than a season to add to that total.
Saige Stahl recorded 15 points and eight rebounds, and Leah Bachmann added 14 points and seven rebounds for East. Albany Speer dished out four assists.
Taylor Treat led New Albany with 25 points.
“We played a lot better the second half,” Brown said. “We just couldn’t throw in in the ocean the first half. We got going in the second half and got a little more up-tempo and got a little better in transition and had a little better inside-outside game that helped us out, and we had balanced scoring out of Koryn and Saige and Leah.”
