Columbus East’s Kenzie Cheek, center, dribbles between East Central’s Audrina Dugan, left, Kaleigh Meadows, right, during an IHSAA girls sectional basketball game at Columbus East High School in Columbus, Ind., Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026.
Mike Wolanin | The Republic
Tuesday night marked the end of the road for this year’s Columbus East girls basketball team.
East Central built a double-digit lead early in the first half and moved on to Friday’s sectional semifinals with a 53-16 victory.
The Trojans (20-3) will take on Franklin (14-8) in the second semifinal Friday at East. Columbus North (17-6) will take on Whiteland (6-16) in the first semifinal matchup at 6 p.m. Friday.
With one minute left in the game, East seniors Brelyn Pool, Ella Anthis and Kenzie Cheek checked out of the game for the final time this season and as Olympians. The trio was the last pieces of the pre-Kaitlyn Phillips coaching era.
East more than doubled its win total from a year ago to finish the season 5-18.
“This game was really important to the three of them, and they have spent a lot of time working on it, traveling for it, spending on it and those things. We went around the locker room afterwards and told all of them some of our favorite things about them just to show our appreciation,” Phillips said. “In a perfect world, it would have been nice to show them that with a win tonight or with more wins this season. I am definitely regretful for that in terms of their senior year experience, but I think our team camarderie, our team group, they all have fun together. It’s been a really good season. If anyone walked into our practice, they wouldn’t be able to guess we won five games this year. They’d be able to tell based on our energy and our personalities and work ethic that we’re getting better, and things are going in the right direction. A big part of it is because of the seniors and the foundation that they laid with me over these last three years, and so ‘Thank you’ will never be enough to them.”
Anthis led the Olympians with seven points. Natalie Stenger led East Central with a game-high 17 points.
While East losing three seniors, they’ll return two juniors and a strong freshman class. Five freshmen saw a lot of varsity action.
“Our freshman are a talented group. They’re a hard working group. The more time that we can spend together because between the five of them, they all came from three different middle schools, so they don’t necessarily have a ton of time playing together other than small groups here and there,” Phillips said. “So the more time they can spend together in the offseason and getting used to the weight room and a high school offseason, but the direction is in an upward trend, and we’re excited about the freshman class and knowing that we’ll have Lola (Watkins) and Krea (Martin) also continue to lead them until they take over as juniors. I think that will also put us in a good spot.”
East Central 53, Columbus East 16
East Central;14;15;13;11;—;53
Columbus East;5;4;4;3;—;16
East Central (20-3): Natalie Stenger 8 1-4 17, Audrina Dugan 3 5-6 12, Lilly Maple 3 2-2 10, Sydney Campbell 1 2-2 4, Kaleigh Meadows 2 3-4 8, Teagan Leihgeber 1 0-0 2. Totals: 18 13-18 53.
Columbus East (5-18): Kenzie Cheek 1 0-0 2, Lola Watkins 0 1-2 1, Ella Anthis 2 2-2 7, Emma Armstrong 0 0-0 0, Krea Martin 1 0-0 2, Hayden Meek 1 0-0 2, Brelyn Pook 1 0-0 2, Bailey Rohde 0 0-0 0. Totals: 6 3-4 16.
3-point goals: East Central 4 (Maple 2, Dugan, Meadows). Columbus East 1 (Anthis).
