Franklin senior Ashlyn Traylor cuts a piece of the net after the Grizzly Cubs’ 49-46 victory over Mooresville in Saturday’s Class 4A semistate game in Jasper.
Corey Stolzenbach | Dubois County Herald
JASPER
The Franklin girls basketball team wasn’t expecting Saturday’s Class 4A semistate game against Mid-State Conference rival Mooresville to resemble the 25-point joyride that their regular-season meeting had been.
But few of the folks wearing royal blue in the Jasper High School gymnasium had anticipated the white-knuckle ride that the Grizzly Cubs wound up getting in the rematch.
Ahead for most of the evening but never comfortably so, Franklin narrowly survived a late charge by the Pioneers and held on for a 49-46 triumph to secure its first state championship game appearance since 1998.
The second-ranked Grizzly Cubs (28-1), winners of 12 straight, will face No. 5 Noblesville at Gainbridge Fieldhouse this Saturday evening. The Millers routed defending champion Crown Point, 62-41, in the other semistate contest.
“I’m just so happy for our girls,” Franklin coach Josh Sabol said. “To go to the state championship is what you dream of as a coach, as a player, and all of our fans here. It’s just a great feeling.”
The Grizzly Cubs, who steamrolled the Pioneers in their regular-season clash, 62-37, had a considerably tougher time this time around.
Appearing to be in command after a Kuryn Brunson free throw made it 49-41 with just 1:14 left in the fourth quarter, Franklin had to hold on for dear life over those final 74 seconds. Mooresville (19-9) got a quick bucket with 1:02 left and fouled quickly — and after the Grizzly Cubs missed the front end of a one-and-one, Pioneer sophomore Rachel Harshman sank a 3-pointer to make it a one-possession game with 46 seconds remaining.
Franklin then turned the ball over, giving the Pioneers an opportunity to force overtime, but a pair of game-tying 3 attempts missed the mark. Only after Scarlett Kimbrell secured a defensive rebound with two seconds to go could the Grizzly Cubs exhale.
“It was frustrating, but Mooresville’s a good team,” Kimbrell said. “They grinded it out and they really played their hardest.”
Mooresville signaled early on that it had come to play, using its size advantage to clog Franklin’s driving lanes on one end and pick up points in the paint at the other.
The Pioneers also took advantage of their trips to the free throw line, getting half of their 18 first-half points there on 9-for-10 shooting.
“Our fouling got us in trouble,” said Franklin senior Ashlyn Traylor, who finished with a game-high 21 points and also contributed seven rebounds and a pair of steals. “They scored a lot of points off of free throws … but we kept our composure and we stayed calm, and we got the job done.”
Mooresville was within two, 18-16, midway through the second quarter before Kimbrell — the only other Grizzly Cub in double figures with 14 points — started heating up.
The sophomore knocked down a 3-pointer from the left wing at the 3:57 mark, and then after a steal and layup by Traylor, Kimbrell pulled up in transition and drained a 25-footer in front of the Pioneers’ bench.
“I know that I’ve got a hot hand,” Kimbrell said of that second-quarter stretch, “so my teammates continued to get me the ball.”
A Kimbrell runner made it 28-16 with 1:43 left in the half before Mooresville hit a pair of foul shots to go into the break down by 10.
Franklin again threatened to pull away early in the third quarter, when another Kimbrell 3 stretched the lead back to a dozen. But the Pioneers regrouped and put together a 12-2 surge, trimming the deficit all the way down to 37-35 when Madelynn Denny hit a corner 3-pointer with a minute left in the period.
Grizzly Cub sophomore Brooklyn York stemmed the tide of momentum with a wing 3 just 16 seconds later, but Mooresville refused to go away in the fourth.
Back-to-back baskets from Denny and Ally Graber cut the Franklin lead to 42-39 with 4:20 on the clock, and after Brunson and Traylor helped rebuild Franklin’s cushion to a seemingly safe eight points down the stretch, the Pioneers kept counterpunching until the very end, seemingly coming up with big plays almost every time they needed them.
They just fell one big play short.
“You’ve got to give them credit,” Sabol said. “Coach (Mark) Hurt’s been doing this a long time. We’re conference rivals; he’s got great kids and a great program.”
Having taken and survived the Pioneers’ best shot, Franklin can now focus on the game that it’s been targeting from the outset.
“We’re super excited,” Traylor said. “From the beginning of our season, this was our goal, and we’re finally here. We’re not going to let down.”
