NEW PALESTINE
For three quarters, the Whiteland and New Palestine girls basketball teams seemed to be evenly matched.
Unfortunately for the visiting Warriors, all four quarters count, and the Dragons used a dominant first quarter on its way to a 47-29 victory.
Whiteland scored the first basket of the game, but that would be it for its time on top, as the Dragons used a 21-0 run over the rest of the quarter and into the second to establish a lead they would never be in danger of relinquishing.
“Whiteland came out and played us man-to-man at the start, which had me excited,” Dragons coach Sarah Gizzi said.
All three Dragons’ 3-point shots came in the first period as they were seemingly scoring at will. But the New Palestine defense was suffocating at the other end of the floor, too.
The Warriors would not score another field goal after the opening minute of the game until a Taylor Klenner layup with four minutes remaining in the second quarter.
“I give a lot of credit to our girls on the defensive end,” Gizzi said. “We held them to around 20 percent shooting in the first half.”
After that first quarter, the Warriors made a defensive switch of their own that seemed to have evened things out, switching to a zone defense that flummoxed the Dragons.
“We see a lot of zone,” Gizzi said. “But I give a lot of credit to Whiteland and their defensive execution.”
Three Warriors shared the team lead with six points each — Megan Harlow, Toni Joyner and Taylor Mirowski.
“We only increased our lead by two points in the third quarter,” Gizzi said. “I told our girls in the huddle that they worked way too hard in that period to only increase their lead by two, and that’s a credit to Whiteland.”
The Warriors defense continued to harass the Dragons, as New Palestine was not able to score for the first four minutes of the fourth quarter. It was too late for Whiteland, however.
Leah Seib led the Dragons with 13 points, but Gizzi believes this was yet another team victory.
“I think Megan Jolly (8 points, 6 rebounds) did a great job in controlling the game on both ends,” Gizzi said. “But this group really is a team. Working as a unit has got us to where we are.”
