Lady Wolves run & shoot way to 72-63 PCC win over Washington Twp; drop close 55-49 match-up to CP Lady Bulldogs
A USA-365.com Special Report By Mark Smith

Thursday,  Dec. 12, 2002  in Porter Township

WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP (63)  Jen Smith 4-3-12, Christi Gladdis 8-5-21, Aimee Mishler 4-3-13, Ashley Taylor 1-1-3, Jackie Curry 1-0-2, Aliha Polite 3-4-12, Dana Barkas 0-0-0.  TOTALS: 2-16-63.

FGS: 21-48, 44.7%  (Gladdis 8-15, Mishler 4-9, Polite 3-7, Smith 4-8
FTS: 16-27, 59.2 %   (Gladdis 5-8, Smith 3-5, Polite 4-7, Mishler 3-5
TURNOVERS: 24
FOULED OUT: Aimee Mishler (4th Q)
Technical foul: WT bench - 1st Q
3-POINT GOALS (5) Aimee Mishler 2, Alisha Polite 2, Jen Smith.

BOONE GROVE (72)  AJ Puller 1-0-2,  Karissa Walter 8-6-23 (10 rebounds, 9 assists, 5 steals) ,  Heather Moy 5-5-15, Jenn Keller 5-1-12,  Lani Marsh 1-0-2, Rachel Jenkins 4-0-8,  Sara Martinovich 0-1-1, Becky Keller 4-0-9, Danielle Jacobs 0-0-0.  TOTALS:  28-13-72.

FGS: 28-66,  42.4%  (Moy 5-11, Jen Keller 5-10, Walter 8-10, Becky Keller 4-8, Jenkins 4-11
FTS: 13-21, 61.8 percent (Moy 5-6, Walter 6-9)
TURNOVERS: 19
FOULED OUT: Rachel Jenkins - 7:39 left (3Q);  Jenn Keller - 4:14 left (4th Q).
3-POINT GOALS (2) Becky Keller, Jenn Keller

PORTER TOWNSHIP  (12-14-2002) - Part of playing athletics is that you have 'big games' or 'big weeks', that everybody can get all excited about.  For Boone Grove, this was one of those weeks. Playing Washington Township on Thursday (Dec. 12) for the Porter County Conference lead and then a long awaited matchup with big neighbor Crown Point two nights later.

Did they win them both? No. Was it a success? Yes. How can that be?  Because in the PCC, its all about the PCC.

The Wolves outran PCC co-leader Washington Township 72-63 Thursday night and led most of the way before losing 55-49 to neighbor and rival Crown Point in a spirited Saturday night contest.

"This was probably the best game I've seen in this building," said sixth year coach Candy Wilson after everybody had left the shiny, blue Boone Grove gym Saturday night. "We played well. We just ran out of gas at the end."

"I told our players at half-time," said CP coach Tom May, "We knew this was going to be a struggle. This was a big game for them and a not so big game for us. We were down six points in the third quarter. We could've just played dead and lost by 10 or 15."

Just the third meeting in history between Crown Point and Boone Grove started quickly as 5-9 junior Rachel Jenkins, who had scored only 34 points all season (8 games), hit the offensive backboards for six quick points as the home team built a 12-6 lead in front of a disappointingly small crowd of about 400 (mostly CP) fans.

Crown Point ran off seven in a row and Amy Zondor's three-point shot made it 13-12 after one quarter.  The game bogged down considerably in the second period but Boone scored the last five points of the half to take a 26-21 lead.  Pruzin went to the bench with her second foul with 3:29 left in the first quarter and the 5-7 sophomore did not return until the second half.

Boone lead guard Karissa Walter, who came in averaging over 17 points a game, scored nine and stole the ball three times in the first half. The Wolves should've led by more but the were only 8-of-13 from the foul line.

You can imagine Tom May's talk to his team at the half.

"I told them, they're a step quicker than you because you're basically just going through the motions," he reported. "Then, to our girls credit, they turned it around in the second half.  Boone still used a denial defense on Cassie (Pruzin) with number 22, (Jenn Keller) that quick kid.  But we had counters.  We started getting easy shots. We got some things going. We did about five or six counters and girls started to step up to play.  Amy Zondor got a very big rebound. She just shoved a girl out of the way. She had to get it.  Obviously, Pruzin took over in the open court and Boone was exhausted. We played more players and they got tired. We just put in a delay offense today and we got some layups off that."

Boone expanded their lead to 31-23 with 6:10 left in the third quarter on two baskets in a row by Jenkins, who scored a career-high 19. It appeared as if the PCC leaders could pull off a major upset over the co-leaders (with Valparaiso) of the big school Duneland Athletic Conference.

But CP's speed and depth suddenly took hold and made the lead disappear.  Pruzin fed Zondor for one basket and drove the length of the floor for another. After Jenkins scored off a pass from Jenn Keller, breaking through the Lady Bulldog press, Kaitlyn Sertich came off the CP bench to hit a three-point shot to make it 33-30. Danielle Brueck zipped an inbounds pass to Blayre Reeves who hit a short shot to cut the lead to one and baskets by Sertich and Pruzin created ties at 34-34 and 36-36.

Baskets by Jenkins, who is still coming back from pre-season knee surgery gave Boone their final leads at 41-37 and 43-39. The Wolves tried to spead the floor and take time off the clock but they made unforced errors that gave CP the ball, and eventually the lead.

After Jill Weiand made a  steal, Pruzin drove the lane for a three-point play to make it 43-42 with 4:46 left.  Pruzin fed Jen McMullin for CP's go-ahead basket at 44-43.  Off a tie at 44, Pruzin, Weiand and Allison Isailovich scored baskets, Isailovich off CP's spread, delay offense, that gave the Lady Bulldogs a 50-44 lead with 1:26 to go.

The win meant less to CP than it would've to Boone. The Lady Bulldogs' big game is next Saturday (Dec. 21) at Valparaiso. But the lively 32 minutes told several tales.

"Obviously, the film is out on us," said May. "You bump us and play physical with us and we don't like it. Plus, you make someone else (other than Cassie Pruzin) handle the basketball. We've got to adjust to that."

"We ran out of gas," said Candy Wilson. "Karissa played the entire game. We had Keller denying Pruzin so she had double duty. It just all caught up to us in the final three minutes. We have a delay where we're supposed to screen at the end and we didn't screen. We just stood still. We wanted to spread the score and run some time off the clock but we didn't do that very well."

"But, we play well when we're scared. We weren't scared against KV (a 10-point) loss. I think when we think we need to, we rise to the occasion. It's just maturity."

"It was a lot more intense a game than I thought it would be," said CP's Amy Zondor. "It meant a lot to them (Boone). Coach told us that before the game.  It's hard to play two nights in a row. They didn't play last night and you could tell."
"We should've won," said Jenn Keller. "I wish we could play them again."


Thursday's game was just as spirited, although not nearly as close.

"All credit to them," said Washington Township coach Dustin Nelson. "We wanted to press them and push the ball.  But we get a 'B' at that type of game. They get an A+ at that."

For about three quarters, everybody Boone played, played well.

"We've been doing that a lot lately," smiled Boone coach Wilson. This was not a game, in retrospect, because of what both Wilson and Nelson touched on. WT, which is more up-tempo this season than they have been in the past, saw their style of play blow up on them in this game because Boone plays that game better than the defending Class A sectional champ Senators do.

Alternating a man-to-man and trap press, Boone jumped ahead 8-0, 18-10 (on a 3-point basket by Karissa Walter at the buzzer) after one quarter, and steadily built the lead up to 20 points in the third quarter. Walter and track star Jenn Keller would weave through WT's defense repeatedly while shooters Heather Moy, Rachel Jenkins and Becky Keller would find open spaces for open shots.  The team that beats Boone will slow the pace of the game and force them to shoot from out side. Washington Township can be that team (and might be if the two teams meet again in January's PCC tournament) but they weren't on this night.

"Karissa's a real good ballplayer," said Nelson, who saw his team tire out visibly in the second and third quarters of their 10th game in four weeks. "I don't want to use that as an excuse but we have some people who are playing hurt. We can certainly use some time off."

"We want to press and run. That's our style of play. It's just that it's their style of play, too."

This was a match of the coming teams (along with Hanover Central) in the PCC , largely because it matches two of the three (HC's Krysta Rickey is the other) top young point guards in the league in Walter and WT's 5-5 freshman Aimee Mishler.
Mishler, a highly touted junior high player, averaged 10.1 points with 20-of-72 from three-point range in her first eight (she missed one game because she was sick) games.  But in her first meeting with Walter, who came in averaging 16 points, 5.6 assists and 5.0 steals, Mishler was a little overmatched, scoring 13 but collecting only two assists and taking just nine shots before fouling out late in the fourth quarter.  Walter had outrageous numbers: 23 points, 10 rebounds, nine assists and five steals.

The 5-5 left-hander wore out WT, charging up the floor and creating 2-on-1 and 3-on-2 situations. Boone played well as a team, getting their hands on passes, rebounding well and appearing a half step quicker than the visitors. A 41% FG shooting team, Boone even shot the ball (21-48) well. The Wolves, who had made only 3-of-20 three-point baskets all season, got a season-high total of two bonus baskets from sisters Becky and Jenn Keller.

While the win virtually clinches the PCC title for Boone (they have only Kouts (1-7), Morgan Township (2-6) and Hanover Central (3-3) to play, everybody in the league knows that the championship tournament in January is more significant than the the regular season.  And there is a suspicion that WT will now challenge Boone's full court prowess if there is a rematch."

"Oh I remember," smiled Wilson, who beat an up-tempo Wheeler in the regular season last year before losing to a slow-paced Wheeler in the PCC tournament). "Wheeler and their 2-3 zone. We'll be thinking about that."
               
CP-BOONE  NOTES:  "I owe the team 100 donuts," said Zondor.  "They (Boone) run a back-cut play. We watched them do it during the JV game. Coach reminded us that we had to stop our girls from doing that. He said that if our girls score on that play, we have to buy the team a dozen donuts."

"That's call push-down," said Wilson. "That's one of our staple, special plays. We have run that against Lake Central and Chesterton in the summertime. I don't care who we're playing against, that will work."

The first high school match up between between CP's Pruzin, the DAC's top point guard and Boone's Walter, easily the PCC's top lead guard was a draw.  Walter scored 11 with three rebounds, four assists and four steals. Pruzin scored 12, all in the second half, with five assists and three steals.

"Pruzin's more finesse," said Boone coach Wilson, "and Karissa's more intense. She's stronger. She never stops." CP's Tom May added, "Cassie can use both hands equally well. If Karissa gets a little better with her right hand (she's left-handed) nobody will ever stop her."

Boone and Wheeler are the coming teams in the PCC despite the fact that seniors Like Boone's Heather Moy, AJ Puller and Jenn Keller and WT's leading scorer Christi Gladdis are all seniors. Boone has a ready-made team of sophomores already on the varsity, with Walter and 5-7 Sara Martinovich at guard, fast, distance shooting Becky Keller as a combination guard-forward and 5-10 forwards Lani March and Danielle Jacobs up front.

But WT has 6-foot Alisha Polite, 5-6 wing shooter Jen Smith and 5-2 letterman Dana Barkas, plus 5-7 Danielle Wiggelsworth and 5-11 Jen Sievers to go with Mishler, who is just a freshman.  Nelson has a caution.

"We keep having girls quit on us," he says with some sadness. "I truly don't understand it.  I'm hard on them, I know.  But we had a winning season last year (18-5).  We won a sectional title.  And then girls quit.  That happened before last season as well.  I don't know what they want."

Quietly, Boone is on the way to an all-time best season, even assuming losses to Crown Point, North Newton and North Judson (which are not guaranteed). If they win the South County (where they are a prohibitive favorites) and PCC tournaments (they will be slight favorite) and don't get overconfident against teams they have overmatched, Boone is looking at 17-4 on the regular season.

Outside of the PCC tournament, the key game now becomes North Newton (Jan. 7), which eliminated Boone in last years' sectional championship game.

The Boone-CP crowd was about 400, which was a disappointing. To be fair, a very high-profile East Chicago-Crown Point game was going on at Crown Point high school, and over 1,000 watched that game. But at least 200 of the fans at Boone Saturday night were from Crown Point. It was the Boone backers who were absent.  Wilson was grateful for the support her team got. "It was good to see our fans here cheering for us."

But Jenn Keller also was disappointed. "I used to think we didn't draw fans because we weren't winning.  Now we are and we still don't draw."

Tom May also noticed, "We had more fans than they did and most of our people are back at the schools watching the boys play East Chicago."

Boone Grove also needs to play up this game, which has 'rivalry' written all over it. There was no band from Boone, no Boone cheerleaders (CP did have cheerleaders at both the boys and girls games on Saturday night) and not that many fans in the stands for a team that will edge up into the state Class 2A top-20 this week.

I remember five years ago when Boone had to play Saturday afternoon girls' games against LaCrosse with 28 people in the stands so 400 is a huge step up. But CP and Boone will be very strong for the next two seasons because they are both loaded with talented sophomores. Odds are, both will be in the top-10 in the state. I can promise you that Boone-CP in 2003 will bring over 1,000 fans to the new CPHS. In two years, it would be nice to see Boone promote this game heavily and draw 1,000 fans for Boone-CP in December of 2004.

For the Record: 2002-2003 BOONE GROVE (7-2, 4-0 PCC)

Coach Candy Wilson (6th year)  39-61 in 5 seasons

JV coach: Stephanie Lytle
Freshman coach: Ben Breuninger

PCC games in CAPS, Home games in bold
11-12-2002: 58-28 at River Forest (2-5)
11-15-2002: 45-34 at Calumet (2-4)
11-16-2002: 71-47 at HEBRON (0-7)
11-22-2002: 62-55 at Knox  (0-4)
11-26-2002:  89-34 LaCROSSE (0-5)
12-2-2002:  57-67 at Kankakee Valley (3-3)
12-6-2002: 79-61 at WHEELER (5-3)
12-12-2002:  63-72 WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP (7-4)
12-14-2002:  49-55  CROWN POINT (7-2) 
12-17-2002 (Tu) KOUTS (0-7)  6 p.m.
12-19-2002 (Th)  at MORGAN TOWNSHIP (1-5) 6 p.m.
South County Tournament  (at Boone Grove)
1-3-2003: vs. Boone, Kouts or Morgan Township 
1-4-2003:   6 or 8 p.m. (3rd place or championship)
1-7-2003 (Tu.) at North Newton (4-0)   6 p.m.
1-9-2003 (Th)  SOUTH CENTRAL (1-5) 6 p.m.
1-15-2003 (W) Lake Station (0-6) 6 p.m.
Porter County Conference (PCC) Tournament  (at Morgan Township)
1-20-2003 (M) quarterfinals ( 6 or 8 p.m.)
1-21-2003 (Tu) quarterfinals (6 or 8 p.m.)
1-24-2003 (F) semifinals (6 or 8 p.m.)
1-25-2003:  6 p.m. (championship)  at Boone Grove
1-30-2003 (Th) HANOVER CENTRAL  (6 p.m.)
2-6-2003 (F) at North Judson (4-0) 5 p.m.

Boone Grove (2A) Sectional
2-11-2003 (Tu) Quarterfinals  (6 p.m.)
2-14-2003 (F) Semifinals  (6 p.m.)
2-15-2003  (S) Championship (7:30 p.m.)
North Judson (2A) Regional
2-22-2003 (S) Semifinals  (11 a.m.)
2-22-2003 (S) Championship  (7 p.m.)

For the Record: 2003 CROWN POINT (7-2, 2-0 DAC)

Coach Tom May (23 years: 378-128)
Assistant coaches: Beth Jacobs
JV coach: Scott Reid   -  Freshman coach: Brian McClanahan
8th grade coach: Mike Malaski    -     7th grade coach: Angie Babjak  

Start times are JV starting times
11-15-2002:  74-19 Hebron (0-6)
11-16-2002:  40-47  at Andrean (2-0)
11-22-2002:  55-30 Kankakee Valley (1-3)
11-23-2002:  52-30 at Munster (1-4)
11-29-2002:  42-46 Warsaw  (2-0)
12-3-2002: 34-53 Lowell (3-5)
12-6-2002:  47-28 at PORTAGE (4-4)
12-13-2002:  50-44 MERRILLVILLE (3-5)
12-14-2002: 55-49 at Boone Grove (7-2)
12-21-2002 (S) at Valparaiso (4-4) 11 a.m.-JV

Lady Bulldog Shootout (with Martinsville, Carroll and Noblesville)
12-28-2002 (S) semifinal -  11 a.m.
12-28-2002 (S) finals - 6 p.m.

1-4-2003 (S) at Hanover Central -  6 p.m.
1-10-2003 (F) MICHIGAN CITY - 6 p.m.
1-18-2003 (S) CHESTERTON - 6 p.m.
1-24-2003 (F) at LaPORTE - 6 p.m.
1-25-2003 (S) Bishop Luers - 6 p.m.
2-1-2003 (S) HOBART - 6 p.m.
2-4-2003 (Tu) at Lake Central - 6 p.m.

Portage (4A) Sectional
2-11-2003 (Tu) Quarterfinals  (6 or 8 p.m.)
2-14-2003 (F) Semifinals  (6 of 8 p.m.)
2-15-2003 (S) Championship  (7:30 p.m.)

Valparaiso (4A) Regional
2-22-2003 (S) Semifinals  (11a.m.)
2-22-2003 (S) Championship  (7 p.m.)

Plymouth (4A) Semistate
3-1-2003 (S) Semistate championship (TBA)

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Revised: July 10, 2004 .