Jennings County’s Mollie Ernstes shoots as Columbus North’s Kaylie Harmon defends Dec. 23 in Memorial Gymnasium at Columbus North High School.
Tommy Walker | For The Republic
When Class 3A No. 8 Jennings County meets 3A No. 6 Washington in the semifinals of the Southport Semistate at 10 a.m. Saturday, the Panthers will be seeing a team in a similar position as themselves.
Both teams broke long regional championship droughts last weekend. Jennings won its first regional since 1993, while the Hatchets won their first regional since 1997, the final year of one-class basketball in Indiana.
Both teams avenged regular-season losses in both the sectional final and the regional. The Panthers turned the tables on 3A No. 3 Greensburg and 3A No. 2 Silver Creek, while Washington avenged defeats to Princeton and Evansville Central.
Both teams are coached by players who led their respective schools to their last regional title. Kristi (Green) Sigler led Jennings to the 1993 title, and Gretchen Miles led the Hatchets to their 1997 crown.
Oh, and when the Panthers made it to semistate in 1993, it was Washington which knocked them out with a 56-48 semifinal decision. That was Sigler’s last game before moving on to Indiana University.
Miles went on to play at University of Southern Indiana, as did her classmate and teammate Elizabeth (Prewitt) Reed. Reed’s daughter, 6-foot-2 Murray State recruit Katie Reed, is the star of this year’s Hatchet team, averaging 17.7 and 8.2 points a game.
Washington is 22-4, with three of their losses coming in overtime. The Hatchets’ lone loss in regulation was a three-point setback against Evansville Reitz, the team that beat Columbus North in the regional and is headed to the Class 4A semistate at Jasper.
“They’ve had a great season,” Sigler said. “Defensively, they’re only giving up 33 points a game, so they’re very good on the defensive end of the floor.”
Jennings is led by 6-0 Kansas recruit Mollie Ernstes, who is averaging 24.2 points, 4.3 assists and 1.6 steals per game. Ernstes has been named this week’s Indiana Basketball Coaches Association District 3 Girls Player of the Week.
Junior Etta Young is averaging 14.6 points and a team-high 8.4 rebounds. Senior Riley Byford adds 6.9 points and is a lockdown defender. Senior Kaydence Lowman, juniors Addison Petro and Hailey Dunham and sophomore Aniston Kent also have played key roles.
“Our role players have really stepped up,” Sigler said. “Mollie has been very solid, and Etta continues to play well. Riley held (Silver Creek’s Emma) Schoen to six points, which is outstanding because Schoen hit five 3s in our first game. They’re all playing their roles. They’re being themselves. They’re not trying to do anything out of the ordinary. Defensively, they’re playing very hard.”
The Panthers had lost to Silver Creek 61-49 to close the regular season. Jennings won the regional rematch 62-51.
“Defensively, we were very good,” Sigler said. “We changed the matchups based on our first outing with them. We took care of the ball a lot better. We came out with a good start and played with a lot of confidence throughout the game.”
In Saturday’s second semifinal, 3A No. 1 Roncalli (25-3) will play Northview (20-6). The winners will meet for the semistate championship at 8 p.m. Saturday, with a berth in the state title game on the line.
“Obviously, you talk about one-game-at-a-time,” Sigler said. “That’s what we’ve prepared for this whole journey. Coaches obviously are trying to prepare for three teams, and we’ll work some things in based on what we know we need to work on over the course of the week and go from there.”
After beating the No. 3 and No. 2 teams in 3A the past two weeks, the Panthers are riding a wave of confidence.
“Nothing changes from what we’ve done so far, but at the same time, it’s ‘Why not us?’” Sigler said. “There’s a meaning to that statement.”
