The good news for Columbus East is that it was outscored by only one point in the second half Friday night.
Unfortunately for the Olympians, they trailed Class 4A No. 5 Bloomington South by 20 at halftime. The Panthers posted a 57-36 semifinal victory to advance to tonight’s Columbus North Sectional title game, where they will meet Shelbyville.
“I love these guys,” East coach Brent Chitty said. “They’re resilient. They never quit. They put their nose in and battled a little bit. I’ve enjoyed coaching them. It’s been sometimes frustrating, but sometimes, it’s a blessing.”
Bloomington South (22-3) started off at a torrid pace from the outside. The Panthers went 5 for 5 from 3-point range in the first quarter and 9 for 14 in the first half.
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“I told (Bloomington South) coach (J.R.) Holmes they couldn’t miss the first half,” Chitty said. “They were banking them in. You have to give them credit. They just shot the ball extremely well. Defensively, they got into us. I thought we adjusted a little bit better the second half.”
Despite the Panthers’ torrid shooting start, the Olympians (12-11) were within 11-6 in the final minute of the first quarter. But then Grayson Rolen hit a pair of 3-pointers, and Bloomington South scored seven unanswered points in the final 36 seconds of the period to take an 18-6 lead.
“It was a good stretch, and then the way we shot the ball the first half was ungodly, except for layups,” Holmes said. “We missed seven or eight layups, but we shot the ball really well from the perimeter and were able to stop them defensively. I thought our defense on them was really good the first half.”
East went 4 of 12 from the field and 7 of 10 from the free-throw line in the first half.
“You have to knock down shots,” Chitty said. “We had good looks, and you have to hit. We missed too many free throws, and once again, we were watching the ball, and we weren’t blocking out and rebounding. We kind of shot ourselves in the foot the first half. You just have to give credit to Bloomington South. Tonight, they were the better team. There’s a reason they’re No. 5 in the state.”
The Olympians scored the first six points of the second half to cut the lead to 36-22. But the Panthers pushed the lead back to 20 at the end of the third quarter and led by as many as 23 in the final period.
Carson Whitehead led East with 11 points. Matt Frost and Jacob Pierce each added six.
“The second half, I knew Brent would get on them and get them out there, and they really played a lot harder, I thought,” Holmes said. “They were into us more, and we let us affect that a little bit. Then, our defense made three or four glaring mistakes where they hit a couple 3s on us and got a couple layups on backdoor cuts because we just lost our focus a little bit.”
Holmes, who broke the state’s all-time record for coaching victories last week, extended his mark to 808. Bloomington South’s Anthony Leal led all scorers with 23 points.
East was coming off a 59-58 first-round overtime victory against Bloomington North on a last-second layup by Tyler Boyer. Boyer, who led the Olympians with 20 points in that game, was held to five on Friday.
“Playing Indiana high school basketball is a grind,” Chitty said. “It’s a lot of fun, but it’s a lot of work. I hope that they use it as they go forward in their education and if some of them get a chance to play. I know Matthew Frost is going to Purdue possibly for engineering, and I know that’s going to be a grind. You have to buckle down and keep going hard.”
