When the Columbus North girls basketball team came off a 38-day layoff Tuesday night at Ben Davis, it played well for three quarters before running out of gas in the fourth.
Thursday night, the Bull Dogs kept the engine running for four quarters. They jumped out to an early lead and went on to upset Class 4A No. 6 East Central 61-51.
“It’s a real step forward,” North coach Pat McKee said. “Ben Davis is a quality team, and we battled like crazy and at the end, we just didn’t have enough. Tonight, fortunately, we were able to withstand the run and make another play or two to pull out the victory.”
The win was extra special for McKee. He became North’s all-time winningest girls basketball coach, passing Debbie Marr with his 223rd career victory.
“As I told the players, I haven’t won a single game,” McKee said. “It’s all the players for the last 11 seasons worth of games. The assistant coaches are so fabulous, our staff is wonderful and all the credit goes to the players and the assistant coaches. They do all the heavy lifting.”
Thursday, it was senior point guard Alexa McKinley and junior forward Kylah Lawson doing most of that heavy lifting for the Bull Dogs (6-3) at both ends of the floor. McKinley scored 22 points, and Lawson added 14 points and 11 rebounds.
“It’s awesome,” McKinley said. “We’ve been away so long, it’s great to be back. We just have so much energy because we’ve been holding it in for a long time. “I think our confidence level has actually improved because we’ve been away so long, and all we’ve been doing is practicing. We feel pretty confident.”
Meanwhile, McKinley and Lawson also were instrumental in containing the Trojans’ two big scorers. McKinley played the major part in holding Hope Fox to seven points, and Lawson had a big role in holding Josie Trabel to 17.
“I knew (Trabel’s) skill level,” Lawson said. “I knew she drove a lot, so I tried to kind of stay on her and make sure she didn’t drive on me.”
“We watched them play a lot, and we know their players,” McKinley added. “We did a scouting report, and I think it went pretty well.”
North jumped out to an early 13-6 lead and led 16-9 after one quarter after a buzzer-beating 3-pointer by Kanon Matsuno. East Central (13-3) cut the lead to 19-17 midway through the second quarter, but the Bull Dogs stretched it back to 29-22 at halftime following a 3-pointer by Lauren Barker.
North built its biggest lead at 43-28 on a McKinley 3-pointer with 2:04 left in the third quarter. From there, The Trojans went on a 14-4 run to cut it to 47-42 with 5:15 left in the game.
That’s when Madison White took her only shot of the game and drilled a 3-pointer from the right corner to push the lead back to eight, and East Central came no closer than seven the rest of the way.
“They’re a really good team,” McKee said. “We played really well in many ways. If we can play like that, we’ll beat a lot of teams. I’m very pleased with our overall effort, our ability to finish plays. Our defensive rebounding was overall very good. There were lots of good things.”
Barker finished with 10 points for the Bull Dogs. Matsuno added eight points off the bench.
“It’s just a good feeling to win against a good team like that,” Lawson said. “They really pushed us. I’m just so excited to be back because we haven’t played in so long. Our practices have definitely made us better throughout our break.”
North could see the Trojans, who are the defending sectional champion, again next month in the East Central Sectional.
“It was a great win, but we’re going to see them again, so we have to focus on that game,” McKinley said.
