Franklin High School coach Josh Sabol’s eyes focused on one crucial stat in his girls basketball team’s triumph.
The Grizzly Cubs limited Whiteland’s 6-foot-2 Mackenzie Blazek to five points.
“Blazek is a great player, and to neutralize her, I’ve got to give all the credit to my assistant coach Ben Carroll for drawing up the game plan,” Sabol said. “And I’ve got to give credit for my players for going out and executing it.”
Franklin advanced to the Johnson County championship with a 44-37 victory against Whiteland at Edinburgh High School. The Grizzly Cubs (4-2) will now face Center Grove, a 61-42 winner in the other semifinal.
The championship is set for 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Edinburgh. Greenwood and Edinburgh will meet in the fifth-place game at 4 p.m., followed by Whiteland and Indian Creek in the third-place game.
Makenna Bertsch led the Grizzly Cubs’ balanced attack with 11 points.
“We pride ourselves as a team,” Sabol said. “We’ve got a lot of girls that can play.”
Sidney Crowe was high for Whiteland (0-3) with 10 points.
“They outplayed us,” Warriors coach Kyle Shipp said. “They’re playing hard right now. We’ve got some things to clean up and fix. We’ll get there. I have faith our team will figure this out.”
Whiteland closed the deficit to 38-35 on a basket by Megan Harlow with around 2 minutes to go.
“We had some opportunities there late in the game and we missed some,” Shipp said. “It happens sometimes to basketball teams where it wasn’t isn’t your night. It wasn’t our night. Hats off to them, they played a great game.”
Sabol got his start as a varsity assistant under Center Grove coach Shawn Sanders for four seasons. He then spent two years as Decatur Central’s head coach before taking the Franklin job this season.
Sanders, in his eighth season as Trojans coach, picked up his 100th victory Thursday night. It was a struggle at first. The Trojans (4-1) started with a 9-0 run, but Indian Creek (2-3) responded with 10 unanswered points.
“I thought during that stretch we got quick with our shots and lost our momentum a little bit,” Sanders said. “We talked at halftime to get in a rhythm on offense your shot selection has to be picky. In the second quarter, Madelyn Bitterling got things by getting to the rim and getting some easy shots.”
Center Grove led 13-10 after the first quarter and 31-24 at halftime.
“In the third quarter, we’re a little deeper than they are, and I think our quickness and our defense started to bother them,” Sanders said.
Bitterling led the Trojans with 15 points, hitting 5 of 9 shots. Junior Cassidy Hardin added 11 points on 5-of-12 shooting.
“I thought Cass played fantastic,” Sanders said. “She didn’t shoot the 3-pointer (1 of 6) as well as she normally does. But she did other things. She got deflections. She moved the ball and got some assists.”
Sophomore Katie Burkman was high for Indian Creek with 15 points.
“It’s similar to our other games in that we seem to have a period in the second half that hurts us,” Braves coach Dan Burkman said. “The difference is we didn’t have a letdown. Center Grove just picked it up. Overall, I was happy with our effort. Center Grove is a good team.”
