H.S. Girls Basketball: Boone Grove 61, North Newton 55

Team	1st Qtr	2nd Qtr	3rd Qtr	4th Qtr	Final
North Newton (7-5)	12	9	20	14	55
BOONE GROVE (13-2)	17	11	18	15	61

BOONE GROVE (61) Danielle Jacobs 6-3-15, Becky Keller 2-6-12, Cortney Flanigan 5-0-11, Karissa Walter 4-3-12, Sara Martinovich 1-0-2, Kara Kessler 2-1-5, Megan Dewell 1-0-2, Rachel Jenkins 0-2-2. TOTALS: 21-15-61.

FTS: 15-22, 68.1 percent - Karissa Walter 3-6, Becky Keller 6-8, Rachel Jenkins 2-2, Kessler 1-2, Danielle Jacobs 3-4.
FOULED OUT: none
REBOUNDS: Karissa Walter - 11
STEALS: Cortney Flanigan - 4
ASSISTS: Karissa Walter - 10
TURNOVERS: 13
3-POINT GOALS (4) Becky Keller 2, Cortney Flanigan, Karissa Walter.

NORTH NEWTON (55) Holly Martin 6-2-16, Ashley Barkey 3-0-6, Tara Williamson 3-1-7, Kristen Stone 1-0-3, Pam Estes 1-0-3, Natalie Christensen 7-6-20, Megan Clark 0-0-0. TOTALS: 21-9-55.

FTS: 9-19, 47.3% - Natalie Christensen 6-9, Tara Williamson 1-5, Holly Martin 2-5,
REBOUNDS: Ashley Barkey - 8
STEALS: Holly Martin - 5
ASSISTS: Ashley Barkey - 5
TURNOVERS: 13
FOULED OUT: Natalie Christensen (4th Q) :05 left
3-POINT GOALS (4) Holly Martin 2, Kristen Stone, Pam Estes.

PORTER TOWNSHIP (1-12-2004) - Boone Grove has won 35 of the Wolves' last 44 games. In fact, they are 52-12 over the last three years. But the ride has gotten bumpy lately. Four games ago, Boone barely beat arch-rival Hebron 33-31. Over the holidays Boone was upset at home by Wheeler 66-53. Last week, .500 South Central gave them a run before the Wolves pulled away to win 84-60.

Then on Monday night, here was North Newton, barely above .500. But the Spartans rallied from a seven point half-time deficit to tie the game 41-41 before Boone ran some delay offense and hit some free throws for a 61-55 victory. There could be a reason.

"We've become Hebron," smiled Wilson after the game, referring to the Hawks two-year undefeated run through the Porter County Conference (PCC) that culminated in a state finals berth in 2002.

"I know how I used to be. I would break Hebron down to the Nth degree. We'd spend all our time analyzing them. That's what everybody is doing to us now."

North Newton tossed two different presses and three different half court defenses at Boone, keeping the Wolves (13-2) on their toes in a Monday night rescheduled game. To say they scared Boone probably is overstating it. It's hard to get too scared about a nonconference game against a team that is not a sectional opponent. The game meant more to North Newton than it did to Boone.

"I thought our post players did a nice job in bounds inside tonight," said North Newton coach Mark Christensen. "We moved the ball well. Passed from post to post. Holly (Martin) gets a little impatient with her shot. I told her that she did a good job of being patient and waiting until late in the game."

Martin, a 5-8 senior, scored 10 points in the third quarter for the Spartans, who lost to Boone in the Rensselaer 2A Sectional title game last season. Two of her field goal were three point shots over Boone's 2-3 zone defense.

But Boone responded. Becky Keller hit a three-point shot off the wing and freshman Cortney Flanigan sank a 15-foot jump shot to give the Wolves a 46-41 edge after three quarters. In the final quarter, Flanigan and Boone's left-handed junior lead guard Karissa Walter, led a four-corner style delay game that pulled the lead out to 54-46 with 3:24 left in the game.

"We knew this wasn't going to be an easy game," Wilson said. "We saw them in the Tri-County tournament. When you play schools your size you know it's going to be a tough game. We had problems with everyone moving her feet on defense tonight."

"But it was a good win. We put in a new zone offense. They went to a 1-3-1. They were in a 1-2-2 and the place to attack that is on the baseline. Rachel (Jenkins) got the ball to Kara (Kessler) and you need more than one body on the baseline to defend that. We've got to get something in the post or we aren't going to have anything outside."

Walter didn't have one of her top games but 12 points were paired with 11 rebounds and 10 assists and her usual rough and tumble floor game. The Boone star was responsible for most of Danielle Jacobs' season-high 15 points. Jacobs, a 5-10 junior, moved well without the ball and ran the floor. Keller, another 5-10 junior, used 6-of-8 from the foul line to create a 12-point night. Cortney Flanigan's 11 points were the fifth double figure scoring night for the freshman in her last six games.

"She's got a real good shot," said Wilson. "I keep telling her I'm absolutely going to kill her if she doesn't shoot more. They're all telling her to shoot. She has to take her opportunities because they're there."

North Newton used only seven players and all but three Pam Estes points came from the starting five. "We've got five girls on the bench but they played four quarters in the JV game. We aren't very deep but we're rounding back into shape. The kids get some time off for Christmas and they got out of shape again. But we're pretty good now."

Boone has been pretty good for three years and that means they have to be tougher than they were last week. Better than they were last month.

"We just are not as mentally tough as we were last year," Wilson admits. "Everybody said, 'You have everything coming back. That's true. But we had three strong senior leaders last year and we really haven't replaced all that leadership. I'm not saying we shouldn't be good because we should be."

"But we do some immature things out there. They should not be getting inside our (zone) defense like that. We don't seem to have a sense of urgency yet."

PCC NOTES: Boone Grove coach Candy Wilson thought that the quarterfinal draw that set the Wolves up against Hanover Central next Monday was a pretty even match.

"All of those matchups are pretty good games," Wilson said Monday. "Hebron and Washington is pretty even and our game with Hanover is good. Part of our problem is that we haven't played a lot of tough competition. We played Calumet, Crown Point and Hebron before the first of the year and we really didn't play anybody else who gave us a tough game. Now we play North Newton and Hanover and we've got North Judson coming and we need this."

Boone's Lani Marsh did not play but the reason was not discipline or injury. The 5-10 junior forward will be back for the PCC tournament.

North Newton coach Mark Christensen knows that the Bishop Noll Sectional (Wheeler, Boone and Hanover) is tough, but he says the Class 2A Winamac Sectional is just as competitive. "We've got Winamac, Rochester, North Judson and Rensselaer. That's pretty tough. But Boone's going to have their hands full with Wheeler."

Boone has brought up 5-10 sophomore Kara Kessler and she is playing minutes off the bench. "Kara's been good. She had 10 in our last game and she's had five tonight. She's putting points on the board in the post.'

Boone loses so seldom these days that the losses stick with them. Wilson was easily able to elaborate on the 66-53 loss to Wheeler back on Jan. 3. "We wanted to play a zone against them because I just didn't think we matched up in man-to-man," she said. "But we got so many fouls that we didn't get to do much of anything. They were shooting 'lights out' and we got so many fouls. I wasn't upset in how we played. They just hit their shots and we didn't. We could never get in a flow because everybody was sitting down. We came out in the third quarter and we were rallying and they call Karissa for her fourth foul. We had scored with points and she was stealing the ball. But then she gets the fourth foul and I have to sit her out for the rest of the quarter."

Wilson hoped the Wheeler loss would motivate her girls for a rematch. "That's what happened with us and North Newton last year. They beat us early in the year and we beat them at the sectional."

BOONE GROVE (13-2, 5-0 PCC)
Coach Candy Wilson (7th season) 22-5 last season (2003)
Porter County Conference Games in all CAPS

South County Tournament (at Hebron)
Dec. 22: 72-23 MORGAN TOWNSHIP (3-9) Semifinals
Dec. 23: 33-31 Hebron (4-7) Championship

Porter County Conference Tournament (at Morgan Township)
Jan. 20 (Tu) Hanover Central (6-8)
Jan. 23 (F) PCC semifinals - 6:00 p.m.
Jan. 24 (S) PCC championship (at Boone Grove) 6:00 p.m.

Jan. 29: at HANOVER CENTRAL (6-8) 7:00 p.m.
Feb. 5: North Judson (7-5) 6:30 p.m.

Hanover Central (2A) Sectional
Feb. 10: Quarterfinals 6:00 p.m.
Feb. 13: Semifinals 6:00 p.m.
Feb. 14: HC Sectional final game 7:30 p.m.

Rensselaer (2A) Regional
Feb. 21: Semifinals 11:00 a.m.
Feb. 21: Championship 7:00 p.m.

Warsaw (2A) Semistate
Feb. 28 one game 12 noon or 2:00 p.m.

Lady Wolves wins tougher to come by, despite 61-55 win over North Newton

A USA-365.com Special Report By Mark Smith