Center Grove’s bench celebrates after a forced turnover during Saturday’s sectional final against Mooresville.
Sam Findley | For the Daily Journal
For Center Grove junior guard Audrey Annee, it was just a matter of having the hot hand at the right time.
“It was a hate-to-lose mentality,” Annee said. “If you want to win, you have to do whatever it takes. My teammates found me, and that’s when I was able to knock down my shots. I kind of got in a zone and didn’t want to lose.”
Annee scored 13 of her 17 points in the third quarter as Class 4A No. 9 Trojans pulled away for a 42-25 victory over Mooresville Saturday in the championship game of the Bloomington South Sectional.
The Trojans (21-4) will now face Franklin (18-5) at 4 p.m. Saturday in the Bedford North Lawrence Regional. Franklin topped visiting Center Grove 38-34 Nov. 29. Since then, the Trojans have won 17 consecutive games.
Annee scored all 13 of the Trojans’ points in the third quarter as they turned a 21-20 halftime into a 33-25 lead after three quarters.
Annee sank three 3-pointers in that pivotal quarter.
The Pioneers (19-7) had a 21-14 lead before the Trojans closed the first half with a 6-0 run.
“Coach (Kevin Stuckmeyer) got on us and woke us up after the slow start and we just clicked it into gear, and that’s what got us going,” Annee said. “We started getting steals and deflections and that generated our offense.”
Stuckmeyer said the run at the end of the second quarter was a big momentum shift.
“If we had a big gap (at halftime), it would be a tall task and we would have had a different mindset,” Stuckmeyer said. “Lilly Bischoff really did some good things for us. Our girls clamped it down defensively and caused some turnovers to keep within striking distance at halftime. That gave us confidence to come out of that and our girls played phenomenal in the second half.”
Annee has been Center Grove’s leading scorer this season with a 13.1 average.
“Audrey has done a phenomenal job of putting in the work this summer to put herself in position to have success,” Stuckmeyer said. “It’s really neat when somebody puts that work in to see it paid off. She did it; she delivered.”
Stuckmeyer said the other players deserve credit for finding Annee on offense and getting defensive stops.
Center Grove found a way to slow down Rachel Harshman after the first quarter. Harshman had 10 of her 15 points in the period as the Pioneers led 13-9 after one.
“We were struggling on post help and post positioning,” Stuckmeyer said. “I don’t think we pressured the ball enough early. We kind of got back to that and made it tougher to get it into the post.”
Sophomore Lilly Bischoff scored nine points for the Trojans and junior Rachel Wirts added seven points.
Bischoff’s older sister, Savanna, is a senior starter.
“I’m excited for our seniors. They’ve worked hard all season and helped all the underclassmen,” Lilly said. “They deserve this a lot. I’ve always wanted to win a sectional with Savanna.”
Savanna said it was definitely satisfying to get the Trojans’ first sectional title since 2019.
“We all wanted this so bad and we all worked so hard for this,” she said. “To finally have it, feels so good.”
