Center Grove girls shut down Franklin

<p><strong>C</strong>enter Grove’s girls basketball team has made its living this season on the idea that the other team can’t win if it can’t score.</p><p>The formula worked for the Trojans again on Tuesday night, as another airtight defensive performance led to a methodical 45-23 victory at Franklin.</p><p>Center Grove (6-2) has held four of its eight opponents under 25 points this season.</p>[sc:text-divider text-divider-title="Story continues below gallery" ]Click here to purchase photos from this gallery<p>“The girls are buying in and committing to that end of the floor,” Trojans coach Kevin Stuckmeyer said, “and knowing that if they pack their defense every night that they’re going to give themselves a chance.”</p><p>The first half felt more like a chess match than a basketball game at times, with both sides probing early on for holes in the opponent’s defensive wall. Center Grove found one first, scoring on four straight layups in a two-minute span to take an 8-0 lead late in the first quarter. Franklin wasn’t able to find the basket until it got a putback from Lauren Sandrock at the 1:08 mark.</p><p>The Grizzly Cubs (2-5) stayed close, though, by keeping the Trojans away from the basket at the other end — and when Ella Thompson got loose for a 3-pointer to make it 16-6 with 3:03 left in the half, Franklin’s Megan Thompson answered with one of her own seconds later. The home team trailed by a manageable nine points, 18-9, at halftime.</p><p>Center Grove didn’t leave it manageable for long. Ella Thompson opened the third quarter with a 3, sparking a run of 12 consecutive points fueled largely by the defense and some old-fashioned hustle. During one sequence, Kylie Storm came up with a steal, then hustled upcourt to dive for an offensive rebound and kick out to Emma Utterback for a jump shot.</p><p>“We started to slow our mind down and everything started to pick up for us,” Storm said.</p><p>Utterback added a 3-pointer with 5:11 to go in the period to stretch the Trojan lead to 30-9, and the Grizzly Cubs never threatened again.</p><p>Though his team struggled to get much going offensively, Franklin coach Josh Sabol was extremely pleased with how the Grizzly Cubs fared at the other end.</p><p>“We played a lot of zone last year,” he said, “and we’ve really committed to playing tough, hard-nosed (man-to-man) defense. And we held them to 45, which is outstanding. I felt like if we would have rebounded better in the second half, and we would have cut down on the live-ball turnovers, we probably would’ve held them to less than that.”</p><p>Neither team had anyone score in double digits. Claire Rake and Mary Wilson paced the Trojans with nine points apiece, with Thompson and Utterback each adding eight. Kuryn Brunson had six points to lead Franklin.</p>