Center Grove junior Emily Karr looks for a way around Franklin’s Kuryn Brunson during Tuesday night’s game.
Gary Brockman | For the Daily Journal
For the second time in less than two weeks, Center Grove girls basketball had an opportunity to knock Franklin from the ranks of the unbeaten.
As they did the first time around, the Grizzly Cubs managed to survive.
Ashlyn Traylor put in the go-ahead basket with 39 seconds left and then came up with a defensive rebound at the other end, helping Class 4A No. 3 Franklin sneak out of town with a 48-45 victory.
The Grizzly Cubs (9-0) have won their last three games by a combined eight points.
“We’re just a very determined team,” said Traylor, who scored 13 of her game-high 15 points in the second half. “We like close games; we like the intensity.
Defense dominated the opening quarter. Center Grove didn’t even get a shot up until its fifth possession, yet it never trailed — because the Grizzly Cubs managed just one field goal in the first 10-plus minutes of play. Up 6-4 after the first, the Trojans extended the lead to seven when Savanna Bischoff opened the second period with a 3-pointer and then converted an Audrey Annee steal into a layup.
But as the pace picked up to more closely resemble Franklin’s preferred style, that lead started to wither away. A pair of 3s by Scarlett Kimbrell got the visitors within two, and they tied it up on an Ashlyn Traylor layup with just under two minutes remaining in the first half. Another deep ball from Bischoff broke the deadlock and helped Center Grove take a slim 22-21 edge into the break, but the tempo had changed — and the momentum along with it.
Another Traylor layup put Franklin in front to start the third quarter, and the Grizzly Cubs added a Lauren Klem 3 and a steal and layup by Kuryn Brunson to pull out to a 32-24 lead. The Trojans scored the next seven points, getting back within one on a layup from Annee, but Brunson scored the next five points to build the margin back up to six, leaving the score at 37-31 going into the fourth.
Down eight after a Kyndell Jochim bucket, Center Grove got back-to-back 3-pointers from Annee and Bischoff to climb back within a pair and then tied it up, 40-40, on a corner 3 from Ella Hobson with just over five minutes remaining in the contest.
Neither team led by more than two the rest of the way — and Traylor got the last word.
“I just knew that could score there, so I just went in, and we scored,” Traylor said.
After two Traylor free throws with 21.5 seconds left, Center Grove had a shot to tie but missed the mark.
Brunson wound up with nine points for Franklin, which also got seven points from Jochim and six each from Kimbrell and Erica Buening. Bischoff had 13 points, Hobson 12 and Annee seven for the Trojans (4-5). Emily Karr added six points — all from the foul line, where Center Grove was just 9 for 18 as a team.
“It comes down to one-possession games, and right now they’re finding a way and we’re not,” Center Grove coach Kevin Stuckmeyer said. “They just have the players that are making big-time plays.”
Those big plays have been more necessity than luxury in these two battles against the Trojans; Franklin was a 40-37 winner in the final of the Johnson County tournament on Nov. 20.
Franklin coach Josh Sabol expects the same if there’s a third showdown in February.
“Whenever we come here and play Center Grove, you know what you’re going to get,” he said. “It’s going to be a knife fight, night in and night out, and it’ll be that way again if we see each other in sectional. That’s just how these games are played.”
