Columbus North’s Cooper Horn, center, shoots a layup while guarded by Columbus East’s Julius Dailey, right, and Pete Coriden, left, during the annual boys basketball rivalry game at Columbus North High School in Columbus, Ind., Friday, Dec. 16, 2022.
Mike Wolanin | The Republic
Winter Rivalry Week came and went last week with some intense matchups between Columbus East and Columbus North.
The Bull Dogs ended the week with a 3-2 advantage. North won in girls swimming, girls basketball and boys basketball and the Olympians prevailed in boys swimming and wrestling. The North-East gymnastics meet is scheduled for Jan. 9.
The closest of the Winter Rivalry Week meets came in boys swimming, where, East won 99-84. That snapped a string of wins by the Bull Frogs that dated at least as far back as the 80s.
The biggest turnaround — and perhaps the most shocking — came in girls basketball, where there was a 67-point swing from last season. A year after the Olympians handed North its most lopsided defeat in program history, a 45-point setback, the Bull Dogs won 62-40 on Thursday night at East.
“That definitely wasn’t our best game,” North senior guard Lauren Barker said. “But we fought back tonight. We showed the team we are this year, and I’m looking forward to building off of this win. I think from the minute we stepped out there, we were hungry for it. We wanted to win. I think we proved that. Some of the defensive stops we made just propeled us in our shooting and allowed us to make some big runs there in the second half.”
Barker tied a single-game school record with six 3-pointers on her way to a team-high 26 points. The Bull Dogs, who went 3 for 23 from 3-point range in a loss to East Central a week earlier, went 12 of 19 from long range at East. The Olympians had beaten East Central earlier in the season.
“We worked for this in practice,” Barker said. “We prepared for this moment. But I couldn’t ask for better teammates all around. I think we shared the ball extremely well, and we worked hard to get these shots to fall, and tonight, they finally did. I’m proud of the confidence we played with tonight.”
Columbus North’s Hadassah Hurt sets up for a shot during the annual girls basketball rivalry game at Columbus East High School in Columbus, Ind., Thursday, Dec. 15, 2022.
Mike Wolanin | The Republic
North coach Brett White said he didn’t talk about last year’s loss to the Olympians in the practices leading up to the game.
“It was all about this year,” White said. “There’s nothing we can do about last year, so we just moved on and focused on what was ahead of is. We had all our attention on what we intended to do. Obviously, we made shots, which always helps. But I thought we really defended. We were able to turn them over in the second half. Part of that was energy from the shots that we made. But overall, it was just following the scouting report.”
Like the girls game, Friday night’s boys basketball game saw the first quarter end with a one-point East lead. The Bull Dogs took over in the second quarter and ended up running away for a 68-28 victory.
That was North’s fifth win in a row after dropping its first two contests to open the season.
“We’re definitely playing well right now,” senior guard Ty Ferguson said. “We’re playing really well as a team.”
