Franklin’s Kuryn Brunson shoots over Center Grove’s Lilly Bischoff during Friday’s sectional semifinal at Franklin Central.
INDIANAPOLIS
Having already struggled to survive its two regular-season meetings with rival Center Grove, Class 4A No. 2 Franklin could have been forgiven for freezing up when it found itself trailing the Trojans at halftime of Friday night’s sectional semifinal clash at Franklin Central.
Instead, the Grizzly Cubs used an aggressive trapping defense to force Center Grove into a faster pace, finally getting some separation in the third and fourth quarters before holding on for a 56-49 triumph.
Franklin (24-1) will play in Saturday night’s championship game against Greenwood, which rode a clutch last-minute bucket from Quinn Kelly to a 28-24 victory over the host Flashes in the second semifinal.
“The biggest thing this time around is that we played our style of play,” Franklin coach Josh Sabol said. “We went into this game making adjustments from the first two times we played this season, and the girls executed beautifully. We went into this game saying, ‘There’s no way this game is going to be in the 30s or low 40s; there’s no way in hell that’s happening.’”
A couple of early 3-pointers from Lauren Klem and a handful of Center Grove turnovers helped the Grizzly Cubs grab an early 10-4 advantage in the opener, but the Trojans (13-10) scored the next six points to even it up and then took a 13-12 lead when Audrey Annee beat the first-quarter horn with a 3 from the left wing.
Another trey from Aubrie Booker to open the second period put Center Grove up four before a 10-0 Franklin run, started and finished by two more 3s from Klem, put the Grizzly Cubs back out in front at 24-18 with four minutes left in the half. Once again, though, the Trojans had a response, with Savanna Bischoff connecting on back-to-back 3-pointers to give her team a 26-24 edge. Center Grove led at the midway point, 28-26.
Finally, midway through the third quarter, Franklin was able to make a decisive surge. An Erica Buening layup off of a Scarlett Kimbrell steal provided the seventh and final lead change of the night and sparked a run of 11 consecutive Grizzly Cub points. After a Kimbrell 3 and a pair of foul shots from Brooklyn York, Franklin found itself in front 39-30 with 2:15 left in the quarter.
Franklin helped its cause by forcing 21 Trojan turnovers on the night.
“We wanted to start out with trapping to get them flustered a little bit and speed it up,” Klem said, “so that they were throwing longer passes that we could steal.”
Annee interrupted the Grizzly Cub run with a 3 to cut it to six, but Franklin scored the next six points and stretched its advantage to as many as 16 points, 52-36, with 5:05 remaining. The Trojans made a late push to get as close as 54-49 on a Bischoff 3 in the final minute.
Ashlyn Traylor finished with a game-high 20 points for the Grizzly Cubs and matched Kimbrell with four steals. Klem scored 12 points and Kuryn Brunson 11 in the win.
Though Klem’s outside shooting kept the Grizzly Cubs afloat in the first half, Sabol credited the sophomore’s all-around play with setting the tone.
“The thing about Lauren is, no one ever talks about her defense,” Sabol said. “No one ever talks about the fact that she never turns the ball over. No one ever talks about the fact that she always gets us in the right spot. Lauren does so much more than shoot.”
Annee had 13 points to lead the Trojans, with Bischoff adding 12 points and five steals and Ella Hobson scoring 10.
Though Center Grove’s season ended on a frustrating note, there isn’t a single senior on the roster, which coach Kevin Stuckmeyer says should bode well for next season if the returning players can make the necessary improvements in the offseason.
“Our girls need to find the hunger and the accountability and the competitiveness to decide that they’re going to put the work in this summer,” Stuckmeyer said, “and take the next step in that maturity and some of those intangibles. Because at the end of the day, talent is fantastic; talent plus the intangibles is special. Obviously, Franklin definitely has the talent, and I think that they have some of the intangibles. We’re still growing in the intangibles.”
Franklin’s focus, meanwhile, turns toward nailing down a repeat sectional title tonight.
“We’re just going to come out and play our hardest and hope for the win,” Klem said.
In the nightcap, the Woodmen (14-10) built leads of 14-4 and 19-10 behind an early 3-point barrage from Kelly and Lily Howe, then watched Franklin Central storm all the way back, eventually taking a 22-21 lead in the second half.
It was then that Kelly, the lone Greenwood senior, stepped to the fore. She knocked down a go-ahead 3 with 5:24 remaining, and after the Flashes tied the game on a pair of free throws with 54.2 seconds to go, drove the lane and calmly drained a pull-up jumper with 26 seconds on the clock. Keyara Johnson added a pair of foul shots to ice the Woodmen’s ninth win in the last 10 games.
“I just knew that I don’t want it to be over,” Kelly said. “I’m ready to keep playing. My body feels fine. I’m just ready to keep going — and I know that the team, although we might get down sometimes, we want to keep going. I just knew that perseverance was going to be key today; we had to be determined to pull through, and we knew we could.”
Kelly finished with 12 points for Greenwood, which also got six points from Emily Metzger and five each from Johnson and Howe.
The Woodmen endured some long droughts on the offensive end Friday night, but their defense — which hasn’t given up 40 points in a game since Dec. 21 — helped them withstand those dry spells and move on.
“The one thing that we came into the game saying is, ‘Listen, we’re not going to worry about how many points we score. We just want to make sure that we score more points than them,'” Greenwood coach Justin Bennett said. “We want to make sure that defensively, we take care of business. And when we really needed to, we came up with some really big defensive stops.”
