BLOOMINGTON — Columbus North wasn’t about to give up it’s stranglehold on Conference Indiana girls basketball supremacy without a fight.
The Bull Dogs battled back from a double-digit deficit to tie Bloomington South, then rallied again at the end before falling just short in a 57-54 loss Tuesday night.
The victory gave the Panthers the outright conference title, ending North’s seven-year title streak.
“I can’t say enough about the effort and focus our kids played with,” North coach McKee said. “We battled and battled and battled. Yes, we made one or two mistakes that we’d like to clean up, but it’s all good. The effort was fabulous, and playing like that, we’ll have a chance in almost every game.”
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Bloomington South (18-3, 5-0) was on fire early, hitting 9 of 15 from 3-point range in the first half. The Panthers led 36-25 late in the second quarter and enjoyed a 37-29 halftime lead.
The Bull Dogs (16-6, 4-1) came back to tie the game at 42-42 on a Nadia Lomax 3-pointer with 2:11 left in the third quarter. But the Panthers built the lead back to eight on two occasions in the fourth quarter, the last time at 56-48 with 2:15 remaining.
A basket and two free throws from Lomax brought North within 56-52 with 1:05 left. Bloomington South got a free throw from Addy Blackwell, but two more Lomax free throws cut the lead to 57-54 with 25 seconds left.
The Panthers missed a one-and-one with 16 seconds remaining, and Sierra Norman rebounded. The Bull Dogs called timeout with 9.4 seconds left to set up a 3-point attempt, but Annie Anderson’s contested shot just before the buzzer was off the mark.
“Obviously, we’re disappointed that we didn’t win, but I think that this is the hardest that we’ve played on both ends,” said Lomax, who led North with 22 points. “I think it was a really exciting game, and we’re excited to see where we go from here.”
Blackwell, a University of Southern Indiana recruit, led Bloomington South with 21 points. Lauren Conner, who matched Blackwell with four first-half 3-pointers, finished with 18 points for the Panthers.
Tessa Lomax scored 14 points and led North to a 20-16 advantage on the boards with six rebounds. The Bull Dogs went 22 of 23 from the free-throw line.
“They did a lot of great things,” McKee said. “Clearly, there’s one or two plays I would have liked to have cleaned up, but we played really well. Bloomington South played really well, too, especially early in the game, and they made one or two more plays than we did.”
North, which could see the Panthers again in next week’s sectional final, was playing for the second time in as many days. The Bull Dogs got back Monday night after playing an afternoon game in Chicago.
“I think we kind of wanted to battle through (the fatigue) for each other because we all wanted to win this game,” Nadia Lomax said. “We struggled a lot in this game, and with struggle comes learning possibilities, so I think we learned a lot against them.”
