INDIANAPOLIS — Playing its third game in four nights, Columbus North ran into a red-hot Roncalli girls basketball team on Thursday.
The Royals used a 10-0 first-half run to take control and a 12-0 second-half run to pull away in running their winning streak to seven with a 55-48 decision.
The Bull Dogs (10-5) led 13-9 five minutes into the game. That’s when Roncalli (17-4) used its 10-0 run that spanned the first and second quarters. The Royals led 28-22 at halftime.
North’s Alexa McKinley hit a 3-pointer to open the second half to cut the lead to three. The Bull Dogs were within 32-28 after a 3-pointer from Emma Long, but then Roncalli ran off a 12-0 spurt to take its biggest lead at 44-28 in the opening minute of the fourth quarter.
North wasn’t done. Back-to-back 3-pointers by Lucy Norman and Madison White cut the lead to 10. Two more 3s by White later in the fourth quarter cut the lead to seven each time, but that was as close as the Bull Dogs would get.
White finished with 12 points, and Kylah Lawson had 12 points and seven rebounds to lead North. Lauren Barker added 10 points.
Maddie Bischoff, playing in her final home game at Roncalli, led the Royals withe 33 points.
The Bull Dogs were plagued by 14 turnovers, all in the first three quarters. Roncalli outrebounded North 25-19.
The loss snaps a three-game winning streak for the Bull Dogs, who had clinched at least a share of the Conference Indiana title with a victory Monday at Bloomington South and added a win at home against Rushville on Tuesday. North can wrap up an unbeaten conference season and win the title out right when it finishes the regular season Saturday at home against Terre Haute North.
The Bull Dogs open sectional play Tuesday against Bloomington South at East Central.
