It took some time, but the premier girls basketball teams in the Western Indiana Conference finally got around to occupying the same court.
Indian Creek’s 61-36 defeat of Northview proved it was worth the wait.
Freshman guard Ayla Lollar came off the bench to pace the Braves with 16 points, while sophomore center Faith Wiseman added 13 and soph Lauren Foster, a guard, chipped in 10. The 6-foot-4 Wiseman cleaned the glass for 13 rebounds as Indian Creek dominated that category, 34-23.
The Braves upped their league mark to 8-0 and are 16-4 over with the win in what was the first game of a girls/boys doubleheader. In the boys game, Northview jumped out to a big lead early and cruised to a 74-63 triumph.
Braves coach Brian Ferris started his three seniors — forward Emilee Scott and guards Emily Todor and Zoe Rayback — on what the team’s senior night, with all three breaking into the scoring column. Lollar and junior guard Savannah Hall, who usually start, entered the game with 3:51 remaining in the first quarter and their squad trailing, 5-3.
“It feels so good, especially because (Northview) is one of our biggest conference competitors,” said Scott, who finished with four points and four boards. “It feels great to win, especially by 25. We sort of struggled in the first half, but we picked it up in the second half.”
The Knights (18-4, 9-1 WIC) shot a bone-chilling 8 of 46 (17.4%) from the floor.
Indian Creek led at halftime, 19-14, keyed by a 13-0 scoring run starting inside the final minute of the first quarter, lasting until 2:21 of the second and including points from five different Braves players.
This gave the hosts a comfortable 19-7 advantage, but Northview responded with a 7-0 spurt to close the half.
Indian Creek outscored Northview, 15-5 to open the third stanza and 13-6 at the outset of the fourth to put the game away.
“Northview is a really good team. They were undefeated in the conference and had only three losses (overall),” Ferris said. “They have really good guard play, so we’ve been working the last couple weeks really preparing two or three different defenses we could use to try to throw them off.
“I knew that if we could not let them have easy shots and keep them off the foul line, and we could actually play our game, maybe we could get them worn down. I was glad to see that lead stretch,because I didn’t want to be anywhere near 10 points come the fourth quarter.”
Indian Creek can wrap up the WIC championship with a win in one of their final two conference games — at West Vigo this afternoon in another girl/boy doubleheader or next Thursday night at home against South Putnam.
Senior Braxton Christie led the Indian Creek boys with 12 points, followed by Aidan Neathery with nine.
