Columbus North’s hopes of winning a share of the Conference Indiana girls basketball title went by the wayside Saturday when the Bull Dogs couldn’t hold a double-digit lead against Bloomington South.
The Panthers rallied for a 48-45 victory, clinching at least a tie for the conference title and giving coach Larry Winters his 300th career win.
After falling behind 9-3 late in the first quarter, North took control by going on a 19-0 run to take a 22-9 lead in the closing seconds of the first half. The Bull Dogs had shut out Bloomington South for the first 7:59 of the second quarter, but Lauren Conner converted a 4-point play with 1 second left to cut the halftime lead to nine.
“I don’t want to put too much importance on one play,” North coach Pat McKee said. “Obviously, I’m disappointed that we lost their shooter and that we fouled her, but that’s one play. We certainly had a handful of chances throughout the second half to make more plays, and we made some, but we needed to make two or three more.”
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The 4-point play gave the Panthers (12-6, 4-0) the momentum going into the second half, and they scored the first seven points of the third quarter to cut the lead to 22-20. The Bull Dogs (11-7, 2-2) held onto a 27-23 lead going into the fourth quarter.
North extended the lead back to 34-27 on a basket by Alexa McKinley with just under six minutes remaining. But Bloomington South came back to tie the game at 36-36 and again at 39-39 on 3-pointers by Kristen Ridner.
The Bull Dogs regained the lead on two free throws from McKinley with 1:56 left, a basket from Ridner and a 3-pointer from Cameron Gillard with 1:18 remaining gave the Panthers the lead for good. North got two free throws from Lauren Barker to cut it to one, but then Bloomington South’s Anneke Fuhr, who had missed her first four free throws, hit three in a row to make it 47-43 with 33 seconds left.
The Bull Dogs’ Annie Anderson hit a long 2-pointer with 7 seconds remaining to cut the lead to two. But after Fuhr hit one more free throw with 4.6 seconds left, she blocked a last-second 3-point attempt by McKinley.
McKinley finished with a game-high 17 points, and Madison White added 10 for North. Kylah Lawson grabbed 11 rebounds to lead the Bull Dogs to a 27-21 advantage on the boards.
North, however, was plagued by 13 turnovers.
“We knew they would bring good, strong pressure,” McKee said. “We handled it sometimes, but there were other times we needed to handle it better.”
The teams could meet again next month when the Panthers host the sectional.
“It’s another potential matchup, and hopefully, we’ll learn from today,” McKee said. “We did plenty of good things, and we need to do more good things and if we learn from today, we certainly can live with today. If we don’t learn from today, then that makes today doubly bad.”
