Indian Creek girls basketball wins first regional title

GREENCASTLE

Creating history, no matter how big or small, isn’t usually planned. It was a guess as to which game LeBron James was going to break the all-time scoring record. It can be spontaneous.

In the case of the Indian Creek girls basketball team, it was discussed, and was something they were well aware of — as junior center Faith Wiseman pointed out after winning the Class 3A Owen Valley Sectional a week ago.

The Braves won their first-ever girls regional championship Saturday afternoon with a 63-31 triumph over Purdue Polytechnic at the McAnally Center. The school’s lone other regional basketball title came from the boys in 1983.

Indian Creek (26-1) moves on to face Bishop Chatard in a noon semifinal game at the Jasper Semistate at noon this Saturday. Corydon Central and Gibson Southern will meet in the other semifinal.

By halftime, history had pretty much been made for the Braves, who never trailed. It was just a matter of what the score was. And it was a total team effort, acording to Indian Creek coach Brian Ferris.

“We work on the fundamentals a lot defensively and try to implement them,” Ferris said. “They see it pays. They know that we can force turnovers and get the ball back and we can score, and they like to score.”

On paper, the Braves and Techies had a lot of similarities. Both had more than 20 wins, both employed up-tempo offenses, and both were used to winning big. Indian Creek had 14 wins by more than 20 points, as did Purdue Poly (22-6).

They had one big disadvantage, though, that Indian Creek exploited — a lack of height.

With no players over 5-foot-8, the Techies were in for a tall task trying to stop 6-4 Indiana University recruit Wiseman or keep her from stopping them.

Indian Creek led from the start, using their up-tempo offense and defensive press to thwart the Techies’ game plan.

“We had to control the game and we did that,” Ferris said. “We’ve been trying to remind them all week to have fun and remember who we are.”

The Braves created 10 first-quarter turnovers in taking a 21-10 lead. It only got better for Indian Creek, as a 9-0 run helped swell the advantage to 37-15 going into halftime.

Not helping Purdue Poly’s cause was a leg injury to senior starter Lailah Hadley, who at that point was the Techies’ top scorer and floor leader. Hadley did not return to the game.

It probably wouldn’t have mattered. So big was the lead — 61-18 after three periods — that Ferris emptied his bench in the third quarter, giving his reserves some valuable postseason experience while keeping his starters from risking injury. The Techies outscored the Braves 13-2 in the final frame, but all that did was shrink the final margin. Indian Creek held the Techies to their season low in points.

Leading the way for the Braves was junior Lauren Foster, who had a game-high 22 points and six rebounds.

“This is amazing,” Foster said. “We needed to start enjoying this, and we played a great game. We were relaxed.”

Wiseman totaled 14 points and also had a game-high 10 rebounds and five blocked shots. Sophomore Ayla Lollar added 10 points.

Purdue Poly was led by Tayler Denton and Madison Jobe, who each had eight points.

The Braves weren’t perfect at times, shooting only 50% (5 for 10) from the free throw line and missing a half-dozen uncontested layups. They will need to improve on both as they get deeper into the tournament. Still, they were able to enjoy making history on Saturday

“It’s an exciting time for the team, the school and the community,” Ferris said. “This is fun.”