Shark Attack: Three Columbus players help travel team win Run 4 The Roses Classic

Columbus East’s Leah Bachmann makes a move for the Indiana Flight Sharks during last week’s Run 4 The Roses Classic in Louisville.

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Last week’s Run 4 The Roses Classic didn’t start off the greatest for the Indiana Flight Sharks 17U girls basketball team, but it ended with a bang.

The Sharks, who feature three incoming seniors from Columbus, won their final two pool games, then won three bracket games to capture the Gold Division Championship in the nation’s largest youth basketball tournament.

“It was really fun,” Columbus North’s Emma Long said. “I’ve been with this team for three years, and we’re really close and we love playing together. This tournament, we went all out. It was a long week, but at the end of the day, it was very exciting to win it.”

Columbus North’s Emma Long defends for the Indiana Flight Sharks during last week’s Run 4 The Roses Classic in Louisville.

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The tournament in Louisville was for the first of the summer for the Sharks. Most travel teams play in the spring, then most players are with their high school teams in June before returning to the travel circuit in July.

In their first game of pool play, the Sharks fell to Kentucky Green 56-50.

“We had not been around each other since the end of May, and you could definitely tell,” said Sharks coach Jason Redar of Lawrenceburg. “Everybody had played with their school teams, but they had not played together.”

The Sharks bounced back to win their final two pool play games, then beat City Elite Prime from Northwest Indiana 44-27 in the quarterfinals.

In the semifinals, the Sharks trailed CAL Storm Taurasi National — sponsored by WNBA star Diana Taurasi — from the Los Angeles area by one point before Columbus East’s Leah Bachmann scored with about 20 seconds left to put her team ahead 48-47.

“We ran a play that was like a back-cut, alley-oop, and they fell for it,” Redar said. “Then, we were able to play defense for about 20 seconds and hold on. They were a lot more athletic than we were. We just out-X’d-and-O’d them and were more intelligent down the stretch.”

Columbus North’s Emma Long, from left, and Columbus East’s Leah Bachmann and Emma Jenkins helped the Indiana Flight Sharks win last week’s Run 4 The Roses Classic in Louisville.

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The Sharks then beat Illinois Fusion 49-41 in the championship game.

“It was good because we put in a lot of time, and it’s lot of hard work,” Bachmann said. “We get to the championship game a lot, and can never pull through, so it was exciting to win a game like that in such a big tournament.”

Columbus East’s Emma Jenkins came off the bench to score back-to-back baskets in that final game.

“We really came out flat and were struggling to score and could not break away from that team,” Redar said. “Emma Jenkins scored four points in a row, which was really big for us. She really gave us a lift.”

Columbus East’s Emma Jenkins looks for an open teammate for the Indiana Flight Sharks during last week’s Run 4 The Roses Classic in Louisville.

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“We played really well as a team,” Jenkins added. “It was sort of difficult with the clientele they had on the other team. They didn’t have a tall post player, so we had to have a very quick group of girls to keep up with them. We worked really well together as a team, and it paid off.”

The basketball futures of the three Columbus players could go any number of ways. Bachmann has visited Malone (Ohio), West Florida and Bluffton (Ohio); and Hiram (Ohio) has reached out to her.

Bachman, who played power forward for the Olympians’ Hoosier Hills Conference championship teams the past two winters, is making the move to center.

“That’s what we did this summer, so AAU has really helped me with that,” Bachmann said. “I’m glad that I was able to work on that this summer. I think that being able to play with other people and sharing the ball will be key because we’ll have basically a whole new team. I think that’s something that I got better at.”

Long isn’t sure if she will play basketball in college, but she does plan to visit Rose-Hulman this fall.

Columbus North’s Emma Long takes a shot for the Indiana Flight Sharks during last week’s Run 4 The Roses Classic in Louisville.

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After playing point guard for the Bull Dogs the past two years, the 5-foot-8 Long also has played shooting guard and small forward with the Sharks.

“With my AAU team, I’m one of the bigger players, so sometimes I play inside or the high post,” Long said. “They stick me whenever they need me.”

“Everybody on our team serves a role that is not exactly what they do in high school,” Redar added. “We have seven different All-Conference players on our team. Emma is there to really get us into our offense, run our offense and she plays tremendous on-the-ball defense. She doesn’t score a lot of points, but she is super smart on the court and our best on-the-ball defender. We rely a lot on her for defense.”

Jenkins did not play high school basketball at East last season and is unsure if she will play her senior year. But she wasn’t ready to give up travel basketball.

“Quitting travel was never really an option for me because I love my team,” Jenkins said. “I have thought a little bit about next year, but there’s no definite decisions yet.”

Jenkins, who wants to attend Indiana University or Purdue, was happy to pick up a title last week.

“I think we really deserved it because we had gotten so close and gotten up to the championship games so many times and came in second, so it was really nice to win,” Jenkins said. “It was a morale boost.”

Meanwhile, another incoming North senior, Rylie Boezeman, played with the Sharks the past couple of seasons and again this spring. But Boezeman has decided to give up basketball to focus on her main sport of lacrosse.

“She felt bad when she would miss our games, but I told her not to worry because she has all these offers in lacrosse,” Redar said. “She’s a great lacrosse player.”