Crown Point Lady Bulldogs split weekend games, winning 67-43 over Boone Grove, but fall 51-38 at Lake Central

A USA-365.com Special Report by Mark Smith 
12-13-2005

Saturday, 12-10-2005 - nonconference game at Crown Point

BOONE GROVE (43)   Jessica Dowdy 4-2-13, Jessica Fauser 2-1-5, Kara Kessler 1-2-4, Cortney Flanigan 4-2-14, Brittney Roach 1-0-2, Kristyn Kessler 1-1-3, Amanda Spears 1-0-2, Kelly Shurr 0-0-0,  Dani Diaz 0-0-0.  TOTALS: 14-(8-12) 43.

CROWN POINT (67)  Stephanie Poulos 3-0-7, Ashley Zaucha 2-1-5, Hannah Plumley 9-1-22, Anjellica Rospond 2-1-5, Courtney Perry 7-3-17.  Jackie Clements 3-0-6, Amanda Moore 1-0-2, Sydnee Reeves 1-0-2, Michelle Lipton 0-1-1, Kristi Quigley 0-0-0, Daniela Tarailo 0-0-0, Katie Kvachkoff 0-0-0.  TOTALS:  28 (7-14) 67.

FOUL SHOTS:  BOONE GROVE - 8-12, 75%;  Dowdy 2-2, Fauser 1-1, Kara Kessler 2-4, Flanigan 2-3, Kristyn Kessler 1-2;  CROWN POINT - 7-14, 50% -  Zaucha 1-2, Plumley 1-2, Perry 3-3, Clements 0-2, Poulos 0-2, Lipton 1-2, Rospond 1-1. 

3-GOALS:  Boone GROVE (7) Cortney Flanigan 4, Jessica Dowdy 3;  CROWN POINT (4) Hannah Plumley 3, Stephanie Poulos.

Friday, 12-9-2005 Duneland Athletic Conference game in St. John

LAKE CENTRAL (51)   Jenelle Kaeplinski 3-4-10, Allison Aguilera 2-4-8, Suzanne Huebner 0-1-1, Katie Fehrman 2-0-4, Jenny Britton 5-0-13, Angie Funston 4-0-10, Lisa Kruse 1-2-4, Jamie Auer 0-1-1.  TOTALS:  17 (12-23) 51.

CROWN POINT (67)  Stephanie Poulos 1-0-2, Ashley Zaucha 2-0-5, Hannah Plumley 1-1-3, Anjellica Rospond 2-0-4, Courtney Perry 5-3-13, Jackie Clements 1-0-2, Amanda Moore 0-0-0, Michelle Lipton 1-0-2, Daniela Tarailo 0-0-0, Katie Kvachkoff 2-1-6.  TOTALS:  15 (6-10) 38.

FOUL SHOTS:  LAKE CENTRAL - 12-23, 52.1%:  Kaeplinski 4-7, Aguilera 4-8, Kruse 2-4, Auer 1-2, Huebner 1-2;
CROWN POINT - 6-10, 50.0% -  Plumley 1-2, Perry 4-6, Kvachkoff 1-2.

ASSISTS:  LAKE CENTRAL (9)  Kruse 2, Aguilera 2, Funston 2, Kaeplinski Fehrman, Britton:  CROWN POINT (7) Zaucha 3, Poulos, Lipton, Moore, Rospond.

STEALS:  LAKE CENTRAL (12) Kruse 4, Kaeplinski 3, Britton, 2 Funston 2, Fehrman;  CROWN POINT (9) Zaucha 4, Plumley 2, Clements 2, Lipton, Moore, Kvachkoff.

3-GOALS:  LAKE CENTRAL (5) Jenny Britton 3, Angie Funston 2;  CROWN POINT (2) Ashley Zaucha, Katie Kvachkoff.

CROWN POINT  (12-10-2005) -  A lot of times matchups aren't player on player, they're history against history.  Experience against experience.  On paper, Saturday's Crown Point-Boone Grove game was a matchup of revamped teams coming off losses.  There wasn't that much difference in the records.

But Crown Point has seven players who were on the varsity last season.  Boone Grove has two.  It showed.

The Lady Bulldogs (5-4) jumped to a quick early lead and just built on it all night long, turning back CP's eastern neighbor 67-43 in a surprising non conference mismatch late Saturday.

"I thought we played with a little more confidence tonight," said CP coach Tom May, "after playing not particularly well in a loss to Lake Central last night.  Tonight, we basically got the ball to people who shot it a lot better than they did last night."

"We did not react to the physical aspect of this game," said Boone Grove coach Candy Wilson.  "Not until the fourth quarter.  It's an intimidating atmosphere.  We have a team of sophomores.  We had a lot of kids who were playing here for the first time.  We always play them pretty well over at our place, but we did not play them well tonight."

CP (5-4) made a change that may have boosted Boone's demise. Coach Tom May moved reserve swing man Ashley Zaucha into the starting lineup and had the 5-8 senior play the point between fellow seniors Hannah Plumley and Stephanie Poulos and in front of tall girls Anjellica Rospond and Courtney Perry.

Zaucha, who was not previously thought of as a floor leader and distributor, scored five points with nine steals and eight assists in a runaway victory.  Plumley, another converted forward who began the season as CP's point guard, didn't seem to mind the change, scoring a career-high 22 points Saturday.  Boone Grove's perimeter defense is largely small and inexperienced but the numbers speak for themselves.

"She knows where kids are," said May. "She's very smart and it carries over to basketball.  Other kids did a lot of things because Ashley got them the ball.  Hannah has been struggling at the point, but tonight she attacked the basket and took her opportunities and looked very good.  When other kids are weapons, Hannah can do a lot of things."

This result may be deceptive because Boone was coming of a 10-day layoff and seemed surprisingly slow.  But Zaucha, a smiley-faced blond who truthfully does not have ball handling skills to be a point guard, displayed that she does indeed have the passing and decision making skills to play the point.  That's two different things.  CP may be on the verge of using a 'point forward' offense where the ball is brought up the floor by committee but the best decision maker distributes it.

"Ashley had nine steals and eight assists by just distributing the ball," said May.  "Everything else opened up.  She did a nice job."

Plumley had seven points and two steals in the first quarter as Boone Grove made 10 turnovers.  The 10-day layoff seemed to be a factor as CP stuck close to Boone leading scorer Cortney Flanigan, who had three first quarter assists before she hit two second quarter three-point baskets.  Soph guard Jessica Dowdy hit three baskets for eight first half points, but CP dominated under the basket.  CP scored a season-high 40 first half points and held Boone to only five rebounds.  Plumley had 15 first half points while 5-10 Boone forwards Kara Kessler and Brittney Roach and Kelly Shurr were all scoreless.

Perry scored 11 of her 17 points in the second half while CP's full court press created 20 steals and 28 Boone turnovers.  The Wolves defeated CP 67-62 in overtime last season, but the Lady Bulldogs were much too strong on this night.

Boone Grove isn't going to dwell on losing to Class 4A Crown Point.  The truth of the Boone Grove schedule is individual games take a backup focus as opposed to tournaments.  The Porter County Conference (PCC) regular season, which brings powerful Morgan Township (7-1) to Boone Thursday (12-15-2005) night, has limited value.  The big events for the Wolves are the  four-team South County Tournament in December and the eight-team PCC championship in January. 

"We just didn't handle the pressure well," said Wilson.  "If you're going to let people push you around, you won't get many rebounds.  We'll just take from it what we can and move on.  It's a learning experience for us at this point, but we thought we were going to give them a better game than this."

Crown Point is in the middle of a span of 5-games-in-nine days, a period they are built for with their nine player rotation.  The win over Boone was as encouraging as the loss 24 hours earlier at Lake Central was discouraging.  The main event is the Tuesday night (12-13-2005) game at arch-rival Valparaiso (6-2), the team that has eliminated CP from the state tournament in each of the last four seasons.

A win at Valpo and suddenly, a mediocre season becomes a proud possession.  The dark side is that with four games left against Merrillville and Valparaiso, a  sub-.500 season is also a possibility.

"We told people that they are going to have to start producing or they have to start sitting," said May, who is very aware that you probably haven't made any kind of turnaround until you put victories back-to-back.  "Now we've got to get ready to play a very good Valparaiso team," he said. "Quite frankly, if we played the way we did tonight against Valparaiso will it be good enough?  Probably not.  If we'd have played the way we played tonight last night against Lake Central, would we have won that one?  I don't think so."

CP-BOONE NOTES:  Crown Point shot just 6-of-31 in the first half against Lake Central and 15 of 57 (.263) for the game.

"Lake Central played well," said coach Tom May.  "But we had shots and we just didn't' make them.  The shots were there.  Our seniors just didn't get much done."

The Bulldogs had 26 turnovers against Lake Central to negate CP's 33-22 rebound advantage.

The player who is making great strides for Crown Point is 5-11 junior center Courtney Perry, who scored 14 in the 51-36 loss to Lake Central Friday and followed it with 17 Saturday against Boone.

"She's coming on for us," said coach Tom May.  "She can do that all the time.  Courtney still thinks a little too much out there instead of just playing.  But we're not going to take her out of there anymore when Anjellica (6-0 center Anjellica Rospond ) goes in.  We're going to play them both at the same time.  Katie Kvachkoff played well at Lake Central.  She'd have played a lot more tonight but she (car problems) got here late this morning."

Boone has not rescheduled a snowed out Thursday (12-8-2005) game with Washington Township. 

"We haven't set a new date for that yet," said coach Wilson.  "It'll be after Christmas.  We have two games (this) week and we have the South County tournament (Dec. 22-23 at Morgan Township) after that."

Cortney Flanigan, who averages 17 points a game, seemed frustrated in her side's inability to stop VP's ever-growing lead.  Flanigan, a 5-5 all-area junior three-year starter at guard, played with all older varsity players her first two seasons, but is now on a team with five sophomores.  A stunning statistic on Boone Grove is that of 20 players on the Wolves' varsity and JV, only three (Flanigan, junior Brittney Roach and senior Kara Kessler, are not freshman or sophomores."

"It's hard for her," said Wilson. "This is a different role for her and she's been handling it very well, but this is a big rivalry.  They all lived in Lakes of the Four Seasons (CP's far eastern border community) together.  There's a lot of her AAU friends at Crown Point.  It's a little personal for her."

Tom May is one of many who has never liked the double-round robin schedule where 14 of the IHSAA-limit 20 games are against the seven Duneland Athletic Conference (DAC) foes and DAC boys and girls play on the same night.

"What we should have done," he said, "is played CP-Lake Central boys last (Friday) night and CP-Lake Central girls tonight (Saturday).  Boone Grove is a non conference game for a Tuesday night. Valparaiso can't be a Tuesday night game."

USA-365.com Notes:  The next Crown Point girls basketball game to be broadcast via the Internet on USA-365.com will be Michigan City at Crown Point on Friday, December 16.  Live coverage begins with the pregame show at 7:15 p.m. and the tip-off is scheduled for 7:30 p.m., CST.  Dave Woodworth and Mark Smith will call the action.

That will be followed up with Hanover Central at Crown Point for a nonconference girls basketball game to be broadcast via the Internet on USA-365.com on Saturday, December 17.  Live coverage begins with the pregame show at 7:15 p.m. and the tip-off is scheduled for 7:30 p.m., CST.  Dave Woodworth (play-by-play) calls the action solo-style. The PODcast and story will be posted later that weekend on www.USA-365.com.   

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Revised: December 13, 2005 .