Whiteland’s coach Kellie Kirkhoff yells out instructions to her players during Friday’s game at Greenwood.
Rob Baker | For the Daily Journal
Forty games into her time as Whiteland’s girls basketball coach, Kellie Kirkhoff is on the right side of a .500 record.
The Warriors got Kirkhoff there with Friday night’s 50-45 overtime victory at Greenwood in the first game of a girls/boys doubleheader.
Cruising along with a 14-point lead early in the fourth quarter, Whiteland withstood a furious Woodmen rally that guaranteed fans no less than four more minutes of basketball.
Whiteland remained poised to improve to 9-8.
“I think that the girls are starting to learn how to win and learn how to fight through adversity,” said Kirkhoff, whose squad is now 4-0 in the Mid-State Conference standings. “They are understanding basketball is a game of runs, and they are changing the mindset through those downs and the highs as well.
“I would say (the fourth quarter) was definitely a combination of us and Greenwood. We kind of lost our way on the defensive end. We started fouling instead of playing the solid defense we talk about playing. But we were able to battle through it.”
In the extra session, Greenwood scored first on Lily Howe’s layup, but Whiteland countered with five points on two Carly VonDielingen hoops in close sandwiched around an Emma Piercy free throw.
Greenwood got to within two points; the Warriors closed it out, scoring five of the game’s final seven points.
VonDielingen, a freshman post, was recipient of several nice interior feeds from teammates in leading all scorers with 18. Piercy added 11, including a pair of 3-pointers.
Whiteland eked out a 34-33 rebounding advantage, led by VonDielingen’s 11 and seven from sophomore guard Sukhman Bains. Howe paced the Woodmen (7-9, 2-3) with 13 points, with senior forward Ella Stivers scoring 10 and corralling a game-high 13 boards.
Greenwood salvaged a split by holding off the Warriors for a 35-32 win in the boys contest.
Junior guard Jake Mosemann proved to be money at the free throw stripe down the stretch, making good on nine of 10 attempts in the final 1:18 of the fourth quarter on his way to a game-high 19 points.
Senior wing Carter Campbell chipped in nine points for the Woodmen, who are 4-7 overall and 1-2 in conference. Whiteland (5-8, 0-3) was paced by junior Wiatt McLaughlin, who scored 14 of his 18 points in the final 2:09 to keep his team within striking distance.
Greenwood senior forward Jabar Elemikan led all rebounders with eight, with Campbell adding four.
“I think the difference was us controlling the tempo,” Woodmen coach Joe Bradburn said. “That’s what we’ve been working on all week. We got our butts kicked a little bit in our own (holiday) tournament.
“We play in pieces. Our offense let us down because we didn’t take care of the basketball, so we went at it really hard this week talking about toughness with the ball. I thought tonight we set a tone, and you saw some savvy down the stretch that we hit free throws because we had a different mindset about what we were trying to get done.”
