Columbus East’s Kaitlyn Phillips coaches her team against Purdue Poly Englewood at Columbus East, Tuesday, Oct. 31, 2023.
Paige Grider | For The Republic
It didn’t take long for Kaitlyn Phillips to realize that wins won’t come easy at the varsity level.
Phillips’ Columbus East girls basketball team had to scratch and claw its way back from a six-point fourth quarter deficit to send Tuesday night’s season opener to overtime. The Olympians then shut out Purdue Poly Englewood in the extra period to pull out a 57-50 victory, giving Phillips a win in her varsity coaching debut.
“One thing we talked about at halftime is that the game of basketball is a game of runs, and we were going to go on this roller coaster of highs and lows and to make sure our highs weren’t too high and our lows weren’t too low,” Phillips said. “We really battled back from adversity, being down one at the half and six at the end of the third. We battled back and won that fourth quarter and showed a lot of maturity and a lot of competitive drive that I was really happy to see.”
East trailed 44-38 entering the fourth quarter and was still down 47-43 midway through the fourth. The Olympians took the lead on a basket by Messiah Trapp, then after a Trapp steal, went up by two on a free throw by Jenna Guse, but the Techies tied it in the final minute, and East missed a shot in the closing seconds.
In the overtime, the Olympians scored three points in the first minute, then after an intentional foul on Purdue Poly gave them two shots and the ball, they got a free throw from Victoria Cuhadar, then a basket and two free throws from Madelyn Poe to ice it.
“I think it was a very good start to our season,” Poe said. “We all played really well as a team together, and I think we’re just going to keep moving forward as a team. I think we just kept fighting in the roller coasters and used grit to know that if we kept fighting, we’d pull it out in the end.”
Poe scored 15 of her game-high 22 points in the first half. When she struggled to find the basket in the second half, Trapp took over. Trapp scored a career-high 15 points and grabbed nine rebounds.
“I just think the atmosphere and my team being with me, they just gave me the support I needed to have open shots and hit open shots,” Trapp said. “It was great having my teammates with me.”
East led 10-9 late in the first quarter, when Poe went on a personal 11-2 run to increase the lead to 21-11. The Olympians still led 30-22 late in the first half before the Techies scored the final nine points of the first half and the first four of the second half to take a 35-20 advantage.
East did not lead again until the Trapp basket with 2:10 remaining.
“We just wanted to stay grounded and not get too amped up, and I think that’s what we did,” Trapp said. “We just stayed calm, played good defense, got the ball back and we went on a run.
“This takes the weight off our our shoulders,” she added. “We know we can play as a team now. We know we can play as a team and play together.”
Guse finished with 10 points and nine rebounds for the Olympians, who outrebounded Purdue Poly 38-37.
“Huge team effort, and I hope that the girls are starting to realize that when we get defensive stops, how much better our offensive momentum and our offensive flow is,” Phillips said. “We really did a great job of getting stops in the fourth quarter, which transitioned into our offense.”
Columbus East 57, Purdue Poly Englewood 50 (OT)
Purdue Poly;11;20;13;6;0;—;50
Columbus East;15;15;8;12;7;—;57
Purdue Poly Englewood (0-1): Ja’Nyiah Rogers 1 0-0 2, Te’Asia Briscoe 0 0-0 0, Madeline Pena-Valdez 1 0-0 2, Tayler Denton 2 8-11 13, Lanyia Smith 1 0-0 2, Coreah Lewis 1 0-0 2, Amelia Story 0 0-0 0, Camile Starks 2 0-0 4, Marrina Simmons 4 0-0 8, Madison Jobe 5 3-3 16. Totals: 17 11-15 50.
Columbus East (1-0): Kenzi Cheek 1 0-0 3, Jenna Guse 3 3-6 10, Kimberly Carothers 0 0-0 0, Victoria Cuhadar 0 3-6 3, Lola Watkins 0 0-0 0, Messiah Trapp 6 3-8 15, Caroline Frost 0 2-2 2, Madelyn Poe 8 4-9 22, Savanna Sullivan 1 0-0 2, Brelyn Pool 0 0-0 0. Totals: 19 15-31 57.
3-point goals: Purdue Poly Englewood 5 (Jobe 3, Denton, Lewis); Columbus East 4 (Poe 2, Cheek, Guse).
