INDIANAPOLIS
The fourth quarter had barely started and Center Grove’s girls basketball team was on the wrong end of a 48-26 score at North Central.
Eventually gritting their way back to within nine points, the Trojans nonetheless lost to the Panthers on Thursday, 56-41.
For a second consecutive game, Center Grove was done in by a formidable front line, this time the combination of 6-foot-3 junior Meg Newman (17 points), 6-foot Nakaih Hunter (16) and 5-11 senior guard/forward Jasmine McWilliams (13).
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The setback drops the Trojans, ranked 10th in Class 4A, to 14-4 overall and 3-2 in the Metropolitan Interscholastic Conference. The No. 9 Panthers are 14-7 and 3-2.
“It is life in the MIC,” Center Grove coach Kevin Stuckmeyer said. “And if you look at us, we don’t really have that size to compete with it. Again, our margin for error is a little bit smaller, so we have to really button up in certain things, and I don’t know that we did that and execute where we had to.”
Consecutive 3-pointers to end the second quarter by McWilliams and sophomore point guard Tanyuel Welch lifted North Central to its biggest lead of the first half at 30-21. The Panthers opened the third with a 12-0 scoring run for what seemed like the knockout points.
Early in the fourth, a bucket inside by Trojans senior Ashley Eck started an 8-0 run capped off by baseline triples from Mary Wilson and Claire Rake.
North Central called a timeout at 4:45 and quickly regained some momentum with a Hunter basket underneath. But another Rake triple began seven straight Center Grove points, and suddenly, it was a 50-41 ballgame with 2:12 on the clock.
Forced to foul, the Trojans watched as the Panthers converted all six one-and-bonus free throw attempts in the final 48.1 seconds.
The Panthers led throughout, scoring the game’s first seven points before Rake finally got the Trojans on the board with a trey from the right wing at 4:24 of the first. Center Grove managed to close to within two at 15-13 early in the second stanza, but NC responded with five straight points.
Claire Rake led the Trojans with 15 points, while her sister, Emily Rake, added 10. North Central dominated the glass, outrebounding Center Grove, 28-10.
Stuckmeyer was proud of his team’s comeback the final eight minutes, but knows that kind of effort and execution is needed all four quarters.
“I don’t think it’s necessarily a build-on. Our girls are girls of character who do it the right way and always have,” Stuckmeyer said. “That doesn’t mean that we execute the way we should all the time, but that has to be there and it has to be a constant for you to be successful.”
Next up for the Trojans is a Saturday game at Seymour.
