Recent history wasn’t siding with Franklin’s girls basketball team entering Tuesday night’s game against Greenwood.
The host Grizzly Cubs, losers of 10 of their last 11 games to the Woodmen, ended the cycle with a 46-39 victory in the opening round of the Johnson County Tournament.
Senior guard Delanie Hill scored a team-high 19 points for Franklin (3-2), while 6-foot-2 center Allison Barnard added nine and a game-best 12 rebounds.
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Click here to purchase photos from this galleryCoach Josh Sabol’s squad now plays Whiteland in the 6 p.m. first semifinal at Edinburgh on Thursday. The second semi pairs Center Grove against Indian Creek.
Greenwood drops to 2-4 despite a 24-point, 8-rebound effort on Tuesday from sophomore guard Alex Kincaid.
The Woodmen take on Edinburgh in the 4 p.m. fifth-place contest Saturday.
Leading by as many as 13 points late in the second quarter, Franklin withstood a furious Greenwood rally as the Woodmen twice held one-point leads during the final period at 37-36 and 39-38.
Sabol wasn’t surprised.
“There’s not one person I respect more in the coaching profession than Lee Taft,” said Sabol of the second-year Greenwood coach. “I have taken and stolen so many things of his and implemented them in my program.
“His kids play so hard, so they deserve a lot of the credit. You’ve got to give (Kincaid) a lot of credit. She’s a great player. We had a hard time stopping the drive tonight, and usually we’re stout defensively.”
Kincaid’s steal and layup at 3:58 of the fourth gave Greenwood its final advantage. Taft’s club wouldn’t score again as the Grizzly Cubs sank 8 of 12 free throw opportunities the rest of the way to end the suspense.
Neither squad shot well from the floor or the free throw stripe.
In the end, however, Franklin’s 18 of 34 from the charity stripe looked a lot better than Greenwood’s 3 of 14.
“We’ve struggled from the line. I just believe foul shots are confidence and you’ve got to have a good shooting stroke,” Taft said. “We were talking about foul shots on the bus ride over here.
“But I’ll tell you what, the girls executed what we wanted to do. We wanted to slow the pace of the game down because we knew they were really deep, and we don’t play that deep some games. A couple layups go in, a couple rebounds … we were right there.”
Hill scored 14 of her points in the first half to help give the Grizzly Cubs a 25-16 advantage with two quarters to play.
Her baseline 3-pointer at 7:03 of the second stanza started what amounted to an 8-0 Franklin run that extended the home team’s lead to 19-8.
The Woodmen responded with a Ryan Bauer triple from the top of the key followed by a Kincaid free throw. Again Franklin had an answer, this time with a 6-0 scoring burst in which all points were provided by Hill.
Greenwood would finish making 16 of 44 field goal attempts (.364). The Grizzly Cubs were an even chillier 13 of 41 (.317).
