Bound for Ball State as a tight end, Whiteland senior Max Sullivan has demonstrated his ability to haul in long bombs on the football field many a time.
On Friday night, his ability to drain them on the basketball court wound up being the story.
Sullivan hit three 3-point shots in the final 9:19 of what had been a physical nip-and-tuck affair, setting the stage for the host Warriors to pull away late for a 49-33 triumph over Mid-State Conference rival Greenwood in the back end of a girls-boys doubleheader at Glenn Ray Gymnasium.
The Woodmen girls took the opening half of the twinbill, topping Whiteland by a 44-33 count.
In the nightcap, both sides struggled to find an offensive rhythm during a first quarter that saw each team finish with more turnovers than points. The Warriors (7-5, 2-1) came out of that period with a 6-5 edge that was quickly extended early in the second when Jazz Banwait hit a top-of-the-key 3 and Kyson Jones scored on a drive to the bucket.
Greenwood (6-5, 2-1) didn’t buckle, however, erasing that six-point deficit late in the first half. A pair of 3-pointers from Jake Mosemann, one from each corner, helped the Woodmen even the score at 15-15 heading into the locker room.
From Whiteland’s standpoint, the deadlock had more to do with its own shortcomings than anything in particular that the Woodmen did to shake things up.
“We didn’t feel like we played well at all in the first half,” coach Nate Cangany said. “We went into halftime, and it was probably our most lively conversation at halftime that we’ve had so far this season — and our guys responded. When you play a team like that and at that pace, it’s tough to really get in a rhythm quickly, but going into that second half we got a lot of good possessions in a row, and pretty soon we started feeling it.”
Most of the third quarter saw the visitors answering every Whiteland score with one of their own; on three separate occasions Greenwood fell behind only to even the score back up on its next possession. The Warriors finally inched out to a two-point lead by the end of the period when 3-pointers from Drew Higdon and Sullivan were countered by Woodmen buckets from inside the arc.
“As soon as they started going zone, we have some guys that can really shoot the ball well,” Sullivan said. “We just had to take advantage of when they went zone.”
Greenwood was still within a pair at 31-29 after an Adam Ellinghausen putback with 5:47 remaining in the game. But two Sullivan treys and one more from Higdon, who totaled 15 points to lead all scorers, stretched the Whiteland lead to an insurmountable 41-29 with a little less than three minutes to go.
Ellinghausen scored 10 to pace the Woodmen, followed by Mosemann with nine and Carter Campbell with eight.
The girls contest was tighter than Greenwood’s 45-28 victory in the county tournament back in mid-November, but the visitors still led the rematch wire to wire.
The Woodmen (8-9, 2-3) were up 13-5 after an opening quarter that saw them force eight Whiteland turnovers and get seven early points from Lily Howe to establish control. The Warriors chipped away in the second quarter, with Emily Reed hitting a pair of 3-pointers during a 9-2 spurt that cut the margin to a pair at 16-14, but Quinn Kelly ended the half with a flurry, scoring seven in the last 3:24 to help Greenwood rebuild its advantage to 24-17 by the intermission.
“Quinn’s been a four-year starter on varsity,” Greenwood coach Justin Bennett said. “She’s done a lot for this program, and they depend on her — and when it’s time for us to get a bucket or it’s time for us to get somebody to rally the troops, Quinn’s always been that person.”
Kelly and Ella Stivers scored the first two baskets of the second half to give the Woodmen their largest lead, but Whiteland countered with a 6-0 burst to end the third and get back within range at 28-23. The Warriors were again within five after Braylyn Clendenen hit a 3 with 3:34 remaining in the contest, but they could get no closer than that down the stretch thanks in large part to Greenwood’s stifling D.
“This entire week we’ve just thought our defense is what’s going to win the game,” Kelly said. “Defense is going to lead to offense, so we just really wanted to have high energy on defense, and that’s what we tried to come out with at the beginning.”
Kelly led Greenwood with 14 points and nine rebounds. Howe and Keyara Johnson finished with nine and eight points, respectively, while Brooklyn Bell had a solid all-around game with seven points, five rebounds, four steals and three blocked shots.
Clendenen scored a game-high 15 in a losing effort for the Warriors, with Reed contributing 11.
With the boys county tournament looming next week, the Warriors hope to use this win in front of a spirited crowd as a springboard.
“We feel like we’re going through the toughest part of our schedule right now, but then the next part of our season is the most important part — when you’re battling for county, when you’re battling for conference,” Cangany said. “What we’re trying to do is just finish this segment of our season … and go into that most important phase of the season ready to play our best basketball.”
