Center Grove senior Ali Wiesmann shows some emotion after her high school career ends with a semistate loss to Bedford North Lawrence on Saturday.
Chris Williams | For the Daily Journal
INDIANAPOLIS
Center Grove’s girls basketball team had almost forgotten what it felt like to lose.
For two and a half months, the Class 4A No. 9 Trojans had been on a heater, reeling off 18 victories in a row since the end of November. But on Saturday morning, they found themselves in an early hole and couldn’t keep themselves out of it, suffering a 50-43 setback against No. 7 Bedford North Lawrence in a semifinal game at the Southport Semistate.
“It’s just so hard to simulate (Karsyn) Norman and (Chloe) Spreen’s athleticism and burst,” Center Grove coach Kevin Stuckmeyer said of the Stars’ two biggest … stars. “You can talk about it, you can watch it … it’s just hard to simulate that. We worked all week on having those help defenders kind of being in that gap so they felt them a little bit more; we didn’t adjust to that real early, so they were able to get downhill.”
The Trojans (22-5) found some early success in the paint, going to Rachel Wirts for a couple of early buckets and a 4-2 lead. That well dried up quickly, however, and BNL started getting up and down for some easy baskets in transition. A run of 11 straight points put the Stars in front by nine before an Audrey Annee 3-pointer ended the Center Grove drought.
A three-point play by Norman gave Bedford North Lawrence a 21-11 advantage with 3:42 remaining in the second quarter, but the Trojans were able to string together some defensive stops and chisel away at the deficit before halftime. An Annee 3, a post basket by Wirts and a reverse layup by Annee off a back-door feed from Ella Hobson made it a 21-18 game with 1:22 to go.
Consecutive layups from Aubrie Booker drew Center Grove to within a pair at 24-22 early in the third quarter, and the Trojans finally pulled even at 28-28 when Ella Hobson drained a 3 from the left wing at the 2:27 mark of the period. BNL went back out in front by four on baskets by Madisyn Bailey and Spreen before Hobson banked in a 25-footer at the horn to make it 32-31 heading into the fourth.
Turnovers and fouls started piling up early in the final period for the Trojans, and the Stars took advantage. After hitting just 5 of 11 free throws over the first three quarters, BNL made its first 11 of the fourth to get some much-needed separation. Center Grove stayed within striking distance, but couldn’t make it a one-possession game again until Booker converted a layup with 5.9 seconds remaining. Spreen — who was a perfect 8 of 8 from the line in the last eight minutes on her way to a game-high 20 points — then sank a pair to ice it.
“We just needed to come out in the fourth quarter and take care of the ball,” said Booker, who scored eight of her team-best 14 points in the fourth quarter. “We had too many turnovers; we didn’t run our sets. When Ella hit that 3 we had so much momentum, and we should have kept that going into the fourth quarter. I don’t think we were as aggressive as we could have been.”
Annee finished with 13 points for the Trojans, while Hobson and Werts rounded out the scoresheet with eight apiece. Mallory Pride had 12 and Norman 10 for BNL, which went on to defeat Lawrence North in the championship game.
Stuckmeyer applauded the “maturity and toughness” he saw from his team during the long winning streak that carried it this far into the postseason.
“We’ve been together for a long time,” he said. “To just see them have that championship mindset and mentality pay off, and they now see what that looks like. They can carry that forward in the sport or in their own personal lives, or when they become adults, they can kind of use those same lessons, hopefully, to know that, ‘Okay, this is what it means to do it the right way,’ have attention to detail, and have the focus and do it together.”
Center Grove does graduate four seniors from this group — Hobson, Savanna Bischoff, Aina Williams and Lindsey Walker — but it does also bring back a strong nucleus led by three returning starters. Those players will try to build on the momentum that this year’s squad built between the start of December and now.
“The seniors, we did it all for them, so it’s really hard, this being our last game playing together,” Booker said. “But me, Audrey and Rachel are going to carry it on next year and bring the same energy.”
