Saige Stahl
BLOOMINGTON — When Columbus East played at Bloomington North in December, the Olympians had a rather pedestrian game by their standards, despite a 17-point victory.
Tuesday night, when the teams met again in the opening round of the Bloomington North Sectional, East’s effort was anything but pedestrian. The Class 4A No. 8 Olympians forced 32 Cougars turnovers in rolling to an 80-42 victory.
“We really focused on pressuring this game,” Stahl said. “The last time we played them, that’s something we didn’t do very well. So this game we came out, and we knew we had to pressure them, and I believe that’s what led us to the win.”
Stahl, a 6-foot-1 junior, led the charge on both the offensive and defensive ends. She finished with a career-high 34 points, 10 rebounds and a school-record 14 steals to record her first triple-double.
East (18-3) advances to play Martinsville in Friday’s semifinals.
“We’re playing every game like it’s our last game,” Stahl said. “We’re thankful that we have another game to play and we keep focusing on the goal, and that’s six games left to the state championship.”
The Olympians jumped out to leads of 9-0 and 16-2 early and led 25-7 after one quarter. They built the lead to 42-13 with two minutes left in the first half before East coach Danny Brown rested his starters for the rest of the half.
The Olympians built the lead to 63-34 after three quarters and 75-40 with 5:38 left in the game, triggering a running clock.
“Our press game them everything they wanted, and that was our game plan – to continue to put pressure on them,” Brown said. “We have to do that for 32 minutes in the tournament.”
Koryn Greiwe scored 15 points for East. Harley Gant had 13, and Leah Bachmann added 10.
“I thought did a great job of moving the ball around,” Brown said. “The starting lineup did a great job of scoring, passing, getting steals. It was just an outstanding effort to start things off.”
