Two thousand fifty-six points. The most by any girl in Johnson County history and just two buckets shy of being the most by any county player, period.
One thousand three hundred and thirty-six rebounds. The most by any female who ever played high school basketball in the state of Indiana.
Izzy Reed has hit just about every individual milestone that one could hope to hit during her four years at Greenwood Christian. But there’s one brass ring that she has yet to grab, and it’s once again just two victories away.
She and her teammates want a state championship — so badly, in fact, that Reed almost feels compelled to apologize for it.
“You can definitely tell that we all want more,” she said. “I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but we have big goals, and we don’t want to settle.”
The Cougars have taken a step forward every year since Reed arrived at GCA. They made it to the sectional final her freshman year before being blown out by Tindley; her sophomore season, they returned the favor. After losing the regional final in 2019, Greenwood Christian won it last winter — the first regional championship, in any sport, in school history.
Now, the team is looking to avenge last season’s 57-40 semistate loss to Loogootee — and there’s a particular urgency on the part of Reed and fellow seniors Savvanah Frye and Brooklyn Stubblefield, because a loss doesn’t just mean the end of this season for them.
“Our kids always want to go that extra step; wherever they were last year is not good enough for them,” GCA coach Alan Weems said. “For a senior, your expiration on your career is very real, and these seniors know that right now, the very next game that they play could be the last one. So they have what I call a healthy fear of losing — in other words, they’re going to do whatever they can.”
In Reed’s case, whatever she can do usually entails filling the stat sheet in a way that few, if any, players in this state have ever done. Her first rebound against Bloomfield in the regional semifinal broke a tie atop the state’s all-time rebounding list; Reed grabbed 28 more on the day and now sits comfortably ahead of former Brebeuf, Xavier and WNBA standout Ta’Shia Phillips.
The fact that Reed is more than 10 inches shorter than Phillips makes her record-breaking boards total mean that much more. Listed at 5-foot-9, the Indiana Wesleyan recruit admits even that figure is a bit exaggerated.
“I’ve always said that rebounding is just effort and hustle, and I hope people look at it and they’re encouraged by it and want to beat it despite how tall they are,” Reed said. “I’m 5-7 3/4. I’m not a tall girl at all. But somehow, my name’s on the top of that list now.”
Barring a freakish turn of events — a contact-tracing nightmare in the coming days, an otherworldly defensive effort by Loogootee or a sinkhole that swallows the Jasper gym whole on Saturday — Reed will also be atop the county’s scoring list soon as well. Her 2,056 points are just three back of the local mark set by GCA alum Kyle Stidom.
But Reed has always made it clear that her ultimate goal has nothing to do with individual statistical achievement. She would gladly trade all of those buckets and boards that she’s amassed over the past four years for the chance to scale a ladder at Bankers Life Fieldhouse, scissors in hand.
The fact that she has, at most, two games left in her high school career is one that Reed is very much aware of, and so she’s savoring every moment from here on out. She’s also feeling good about the Cougars’ chances to extend the season one more week.
“We didn’t really play our best (at the regional), and we won,” Reed said, “which is super awesome and exciting, because we have a lot of things that we can fix. I just feel like we haven’t hit our ceiling yet, and that’s super encouraging to me.”
If GCA does hit its ceiling, it’s certainly capable of not only beating Loogootee, but going all the way. Weems has seen his team’s hunger up close — a hunger that has grown every step of the way — but he acknowledges that hunger is only one part of the equation.
“They like to win,” he said of his players. “Everybody likes to win, but not everybody has the ability or the work ethic to.”
Fortunately, Izzy Reed has always had both.
