Koryn Greiwe
As Class 4A No. 11 Columbus East was building a double-digit second-quarter lead on 4A No. 8 Hamilton Southeastern Saturday evening, senior point guard Koryn Griewe had a message for her teammates.
The Royals came back to take the lead at the end of the third quarter, but the Olympians regrouped and pulled out a 57-55 upset in the finale of the Columbus East Classic.
“Koryn kept saying, ‘Keep your foot on the gas pedal,’ and we all really took that to heart, and we went out and did our best,” said junior forward Leah Bachmann, who had 16 points and nine rebounds.
The victory allowed the Olympians (3-1) to earn a split in the two-game tourney. They fell to 4A No. 10 Fishers 52-43 early Saturday afternoon.
Although HSE (3-2) was playing its first game of the day, and East was playing its second, the Olympians dug deep to find the energy against the Royals.
“Losing this morning, we were all really hyped to come back in and just get a win, and that’s exactly what we did,” said Greiwe, who scored a game-high 18 points. “We were trying to be composed and just make sure that we were taking care of the ball, taking good shots, getting to the free-throw line. That was really big. It wasn’t all pretty, but a win is a win, and it was a big win.”
East led by as many as 12 at 32-20 midway through the second quarter. HSE cut the lead to 37-31 at halftime, then held the Olympians to one field goal in the third quarter in taking a 44-42 advantage.
East scored the first eight points of the third quarter to regain control.
“We kept pushing the fourth quarter,” said junior forward Saige Stahl, who had 10 points, 15 rebounds and seven steals. “That was our main goal, to finish it strong. We’re going to work as a team and share the ball and do the best we can to get the lead and win the game. We were all pretty tired after the first game, but we knew we had to come out and give it our all because it’s such a big game, and leading into East Central this week, we needed a win to get up and have a positive attitude.”
Greiwe hit 8 of 10 free throws in the fourth quarter to help the Olympians push the lead to 57-49 with 36 seconds remaining before a pair of Royals 3-pointers cut the final margin to two.
“We had to use our timeouts,” East coach Danny Brown said. “We did struggle there awhile to get it in. But Koryn and Saige and Albany (Speer) did a good job, and Leah hit a big free throw.”
Harley Gant added eight points and six rebounds for the Olympians, who used only six players in the HSE game.
“Those starters for the most part played most of the game,” Brown said. “Kaitlyn Carothers came in and gave some good time. When you play a talented team, you have to have your veterans on the floor, the ones that have experience. They did a good job. It was good to come out of this with a big win.”
The victory was a reversal of fortune for East, which lost late leads at Fishers and HSE last season and was in a tight game with Fishers for most of the way on Saturday.
“When you play competition like that in one day, it’s easy to get fired back up like that and ready to go,” Brown said. “We didn’t have out legs at the end, but we let a couple games get away from us last year in this classic. Both games, we were ahead going into the fourth quarter. Today, the first game, we were tied going into the fourth quarter. We just found a way to get it done this time. When you play great competition, you have a tendency to get back in shape real quick.”
In the opener, The Olympians jumped out to an early 10-2 lead and led the entire first half, which ended at 25-23. The game was tied four times in the third quarter, but Fishers outscored East 18-9 in the final period.
“Making shots helps, and we executed our offense, got some steals out of the press,” Brown said. “Then, they kind of figured it out after awhile. They used their quickness and got the ball to the middle of the floor. That seemed to hurt us a lot, whether it was on the half-court end and they attacked our matchup zone, or whether in was on the press. They got it down inside, got it to the middle and then just attacked us, and we didn’t have an answer for their quickness in the middle of the floor.”
The Tigers (4-0) hit 10 of 12 free throws in the fourth quarter to seal the win.
“We kind of got in a good situation usually for us where we’re not in foul trouble, but this time, we got to the end and we had to foul,” Brown said. “We were trying to foul certain players, and they wouldn’t let those certain players have the ball and they knocked down their free throws. It was kind of like us in those type of games where we’re knocking down the free throws. The roles were reversed in that fourth quarter from what we’re used to.”
Stahl led the Olympians with 13 points. Gant added 10 points.
“For the most part, we executed what we needed to get done, but Fishers is just very physical, very fast, a very quick team, and it kind of took us out of what we wanted to do for 32 minutes,” Brown said. “We didn’t execute in the fourth quarter, and you have to give them credit. They’re a good team.”
East now turns its attention to its senior night game against Brown County on Tuesday before traveling to two-time defending sectional champion East Central on Thursday.
“We were all tired after that first Fishers game, and I feel like we started slow,” Bachmann said. “Then, we got going, and it feels good to beat No. 8. That’s going to be helpful going into East Central on Thursday.”
