Columbus North's Emma Long drives to the basket against Franklin's Erica Buening during a basketball game at Columbus North High School in Columbus, Ind., Saturday, Nov. 6, 2021. Mike Wolanin | The Republic
After giving up 14 3-pointers in a season-opening loss at Hamilton Southeastern, Columbus North looked for improved perimeter defense against a perimeter-oriented Franklin team in Saturday’s home opener.
The Bull Dogs limited the Grizzly Cubs, who had hit 15 3-pointers in their opener, to four treys on 19 attempts. But the Grizzly Cubs, who are ranked who are ranked No. 5 in the preseason Class 4A poll, took advantage of 23 North turnovers to post a 54-32 girls basketball victory.
“I thought our defense was exactly what we worked on this week, really,” North coach Brett White said. “Obviously, you have to contest their shooters, and we worked that all week. We gave up a couple second shots late, but overall, we did what we planned to do. We followed the game plan that we had defensively. We just weren’t able to make enough plays on the offensive end.”
The Bull Dogs (0-2) led 9-7 after a 3-pointer by Kylah Lawson with 3:30 left in the first quarter and were tied 9-9 after one. After Franklin built an 18-12 lead, North had a chance to cut to three, but missed the layup, and the Grizzly Cubs converted a three-point play at the other end.
The Bull Dogs were only 4 of 11 from the free-throw line in the first half and trailed by those seven points, 22-15. North was 10 of 20 from the line for the game.
“That’s something we have to improve on,” White said. “When you’re trying to make a run on a good basketball team, you have to take advantage of easy opportunities, and it doesn’t get much easier than free throws.”
After going only 1 of 8 from 3-point range in the first half, Franklin opened the third quarter with back-to-back 3s from Kuryn Brunson and Erica Buening to push the lead to 13, and the Bull Dogs never got closer than 11 the rest of the way.
“The second half, we just got a little bit worn down,” White said. “They were able to beat us off the drive a little more, and then once they got rolling, we just weren’t able to respond.”
Emma Long led North with 13 points, while Lawson finished with eight. Lauren Barker and Andrea Justis each grabbed seven rebounds to lead the Bull Dogs to a 33-31 advantage on the boards.
“I would say that we made some improvements,” White said. “I thought overall, we guarded better than what we did in the first game. They play a lot like what Hamilton Southeastern does, and I thought we did a much better job of not letting them stand and shoot without contesting. So I was happy with that. I thought we did some things offensively where we executed a little bit better that what we did Tuesday night. There were definitely positives to what we did.”
