Franklin’s Emma Sappenfield, left, recovers the ball from a trap during Tuesday’s sectional game against Shelbyville.
Chris Williams | For the Daily Journal
A memorable four-year ride that has included two final four runs and a trip to the Class 4A state championship game nearly came to an abrupt end on Tuesday night.
Shelbyville — which lost to Franklin by 28 points in December — switched up tactics and tried to drag the eighth-ranked Grizzly Cubs into a swamp of ugly basketball, and it nearly worked until a late 3-pointer and putback by senior Scarlett Kimbrell allowed the favorites to escape with a 37-32 victory in the first round of the Whiteland Sectional.
In the opener, the host Warriors used a dominating performance on defense and on the glass to roll to a 52-23 win over East Central.
“We were just looking for some effort on the defensive end,” Whiteland coach Kellie Burgeson said. “Really locking in and physically playing defense, which ends with a box-out and a rebound each and every possession. I feel like we were able to make their lives hard on the offensive end for them because of our lockdown defense tonight.”
Whiteland (11-12) meets Columbus East in Friday’s first semifinal, while the Grizzly Cubs (21-3) will take on Columbus North in the other.
Franklin senior guard Lauren Klem picked up her fourth foul with 7:36 to go, and Shelbyville’s Ava Wilson followed with a pair of buckets that gave the Golden Bears (15-8) their first lead of the night, 26-25, at the 5:53 mark. An Aubrey Runyon layup was answered by a Wilson putback, but Kimbrell put the Grizzly Cubs back on top to stay with a deep ball from the right wing with 3:43 left.
“Well, I was bound to make one,” Kimbrell said. “I’m happy that my teammates saw that I was open and got me a good pass.”
Shelbyville stayed in range, getting it back to 34-32 on a Wilson layup with 55 seconds left. But Emma Sappenfield hit three of four free throws in the final minute and the Grizzly Cubs got a couple of defensive stops to come away with the win.
After losing to Franklin 60-32 in the regular season, Shelbyville tried to take the air out of the ball and slow the Grizzly Cubs down in the rematch. The Golden Bears’ 12 first-half turnovers messed that plan up somewhat, but Franklin’s efforts to force the tempo at the other end resulted in a slew of missed shots and giveaways.
After building an early 9-2 lead, Franklin scored just four second-quarter points and staggered into halftime clinging to a slim 16-12 edge. An Ellie Keller basket with 5:38 remaining in the third brought the Golden Bears within a pair, and it was still a one-possession game, 25-22, heading into the final eight minutes.
Klem and Sappenfield scored nine points apiece for Franklin, while Runyon added six and Kimbrell and Brooklyn York had five each.
“We had some bad turnovers in the beginning,” Kimbrell said. “We just needed to calm down. We knew we could complete the game offensively; we just had to take a step back. We were rushing it, for sure.”
Both sides got off to cold shooting starts in the early game, with neither team scoring until East Central’s Meredith converted a layup just before the four-minute mark of the first quarter. The Warriors responded to that initial bucket, though, with the next dozen points — a run that extended into the second period. Sophia Dyer scored four points during that surge, while Sukhman Bains and Gwen Higdon hit 3-pointers.
Bains knocked down another 3 with two minutes left in the half, starting another 7-0 spurt that sent Whiteland into the locker room with a 24-7 cushion.
East Central remained frigid after the break, and the Warriors’ Carly VonDielingen opened the third quarter with three straight baskets to stretch the margin to 30-7. The Trojans finally ended a drought of almost eight minutes with seven consecutive points to get within 16, but a Higdon 3-pointer with 2:05 to go in the period slowed the momentum and the visitors never got closer than 14 the rest of the way.
Whiteland led by as many as 30 in the fourth before pulling its starters late.
Dyer led the Warriors with 14 points and nine rebounds, while VonDielingen finished with 12 points and seven boards. Bains and Higdon also landed in double figures with 10 points apiece for Whiteland, which will try to deliver a similar effort against Columbus East.
“We talk about just outworking the other team,” Burgeson said. “You can control how hard you work, diving on the floor, effort on the defensive end, and so we’re going to get back to work tomorrow at practice and hopefully just outwork them on Friday.”
