When Martinsville rallied from an 11-point first-half deficit to take a four-point lead in the fourth quarter Friday night, Columbus North didn’t panic.
Trailing 34-30 with 3 1/2 minutes remaining, the Bull Dogs scored 12 consecutive points before an Artesians basket in the closing seconds to allow North to improve to 2-0 with a 42-36 girls basketball victory in its home opener.
“I thought we kept on pressuring them well,” said junior point guard Alexa McKinley, who scored a game-high 16 points.
North led 21-10 midway through the second quarter and 21-13 at halftime. The Bull Dogs still led 28-20 midway through the third quarter when Martinsville (2-1) went on a 14-2 run to take a 34-30 lead with just over six minutes left in the game.
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By the time Sierra Norman hit a 3-pointer with 3:22 remaining to cut the lead to one, North had scored only two points in almost 10 minutes.
“It was really big, putting us that close again and knowing that the game was still within reach just kind of pushed us forward even more to get going and get stops,” Norman said.
The Bull Dogs regained the lead on a basket by Tessa Lomax with 2:00 remaining. McKinley then sank six consecutive free throws to extend the martin to 41-34 with 39 seconds left.
McKinley, who was only 3 for 6 from the free-throw line in Tuesday’s season-opening 40-28 win at New Albany, was 9 for 10 from the line on Friday.
“Actually, my free throws haven’t been going very well recently, but I dialed them in today,” McKinley said.
Annie Anderson added a free throw with 14 seconds remaining for the final North point.
Norman finished with 12 points for the Bull Dogs. Kylah Lawson grabbed 11 rebounds to lead North to a 26-20 advantage on the boards.
“We played really tough altogether,” Norman said. “We just made sure we executed on both ends of the floor. I think we played with more confidence than we did the first night. We were a little nervous the first game and wanted to have a good showing for our home crowd.”
The Bull Dogs forced 20 Artesian turnovers, including 11 in the first quarter, which ended with a 12-10 North lead. The Bull Dogs then scored the first nine points of the second quarter to take the 21-10 advantage.
“I think there definitely was progress, especially on the defensive end,” North coach Pat McKee said. “(Martinsville) might have had a few more points than New Albany, but this is a pretty darn good team and they attack the basket really well. They got there a few times, but we were able to contest enough shots and rebound well enough to be able to do what we needed to do.”
