H.S. Girls Basketball: Crown Point 60, Boone Grove 59

Kelly Gross (10) has to get her jump shot up high over 6-foot-1 Boone Grove center Emily Strilich (21). (All Photos by Mark Smith)

Coach Mike Cronkhite talks to the Lady Bulldogs during a time out as they rally to win 60-59 Saturday over Boone Grove.

Junior Lisa Kurth (24) fires a quick pass around the Boone Grove defense.

Victoria Connelly and the CP bench likes the way things are going in the third quarter against Boone.

Boone coach Candy Wilson and assistant coach Heather Moy are finding a referees call hard to understand in Saturday's Boone Grove game at Crown Point.

Junior guard Kelly Gross (10) waits for the referee to hand her the ball to resume play for the lady Bulldogs in their 60-59 home victory over the Boone Grove Lady Wolves, 12-12-2009. (All Photos by Mark Smith)

Crown Point coach Mike Cronkhite's wife Christie is the assistant varsity basketball coach at Washington Township high school.

BOONE GROVE (59) Kelly Dobson 6-0-14, Brittany Dewell 4-4-12, Emily Strilich 2-1-5, Emily Bobrowski 6-6-23, Brittany Shaffer 1-1-3, Jordan Chester 0-2-2, Mary Kieffer 0-0-0, Claudia Cooper 0-0-0, Caitlin Wilcox 0-0-0. TOTALS: 19 (14-24) 59.

CROWN POINT (60) Kelly Gross 3-2-9, Courtney Kvachkoff 1-3-5, Kendall Brown 4-0-10, Alle Geisen 2-1-6, Madeline Moore 4-3-12, Hayley Bordui 3-2-8, Lisa Kurth 1-0-3, Alexis Joseph 1-1-3, Michaela Prough 2-0-4. TOTALS: 21 (12-26) 60.

FREE THROWS: BOONE (14-24, 58.3%) Dewell 4-6, Chester 2-2, Shaffer 1-2, Kieffer 0-2, Strilich 1-4, Bobrowski 6-8. CROWN POINT (12-26, 50%) Gross 2-4, Kvachkoff 3-4, Brown 0-1, Geisen 1-6, Moore 3-4, Joseph 1-5, Bordui 2-2.

REBOUNDS: BO0NE (24) Dewell 6, Dobson 5, Shaffer 4, Chester 3, Strilich 2, Bobrowski 2, Cooper, Kieffer; CROWN POINT (18) Kvachkoff 5, Moore 5, Brown 2, Kurth 2, Bordui, Cecich, Geisen, Joseph.

ASSISTS: BOONE (4) Dewell, Dobson, Strilich, Bobrowski; CROWN POINT (8) Geisen 4, Gross 3, Kurth.

STEALS: BOONE (10) Dobson 2, Dewell 2, Bobrowski 2, Strilich, Kiefer; CROWN POINT (6) Gross 4, Geisen, Kvachkoff.

3-GOALS: BOONE (7) Emily Bobrowski 5, Kelly Dobson 2; CROWN POINT (6) Kendall Brown 2, Madeline Moore, Kelly Gross, Alle Geisen, Lisa Kurth.

FOULED OUT: Brittany Dewell (4th Qtr) 0:34 left.

CROWN POINT, IN (12-12-2009) These Crown Point-Boone Grove games are hardly ever a disappointment.

The CP-Boone game always comes relatively early in the season and the matchup of Class 4A and Class 2A neighbors doesn't mean anything in the long run. But the latest in the series of dramatic neighborhood confrontations ran up and down the floor for two hours Saturday night with Crown Point coming from 13 points behind to hand 2A No. 7 Boone their first loss, 60-59 in front of about 500 noisy fans in the big Crown Point gym.

In a reversal of the 2008 meeting where Boone Grove defeated an unbeaten Crown Point squad by one point, the Lady Bulldogs posted a much-needed victory over their highly-regarded next door rivals.

"They did a nice job adjusting to what we were doing," said Boone coach Candy Wilson.

Boone can't be unhappy about this game for long, though. Sophomore point guard Emily Bobrowski, a transfer from Valparaiso, was a major factor with 23 points, including five three-point baskets. She almost stole the game for Boone after Crown Point led 60-53 with a minute to play. Bobrowski hit a three-pointer with 14 seconds left to cut the lead to 60-56 and, after CP threw the ball away on the inbounds pass, Bobrowski, who played point guard all 32 minutes for Boone, hit another three-pointer with four seconds left. Fortunately for CP, Boone had no time outs remaining and CP simply held the ball out of bounds as the clock ran out.

"For me, I felt like I was dead the first half," said Kelly Gross, who scored six of her nine points after halftime. "In the second half, I figured I actually had to do something. I like playing back-to-back games, though."

At the start of the third quarter Boone, which had not played in eight days, scored 10 points in a row, including three-point baskets by Bobrowski and Kelly Dobson, who averages 15 points per game. Boone led 38-25 with 6:14 remaining in the third period.

But a three-point shot by CP's Kendall Brown started a 16-3 run that tied the game 41-41 with 7:30 left in the fourth quarter.

Boone had stymied CP with a 1-3-1 half court trap. But CP adjusted, pushing the ball to the corners and attacking the baseline. It's rare you see strategy changes so clearly. Boone had the defense to stop CP until the Lady Bulldogs coaches and players figured it out.

"We didn't shift where we were supposed to at the end," said Wilson. "If I'd have it to do over again I'd have shifted out of that (1-3-1) sooner. But we just missed some 'bunny' shots. Shots we normally make. But this is the best we've ever handled things here. Mentally we've come a long way."

But Boone was just playing their seventh of (a potential) 21 games and Bobrowski's season-best 23 points opened some eyes.

"She's from Valpo," said Wilson. "Very good with the ball. There's been a couple of games where she's hit some 3s. She had a great summer camp."

"When I got this job, people told me that I didn't have any seniors," Cronkhite said. "Only Madeline (Moore), Alle (Geisen) and Zarah (Cecich). They told me I might only win five or six games. We're 7-3, but we know there's 10 Duneland Conference games left. Winning seven of our first 10, I'll take it."

Kelly Gross almost seemed apologetic for being 7-3 at mid season.

"It'll get better," she said. "The second half is tougher. We're OK. Were doing well."

CP-BOONE NOTES: Crown Point lost 44-41 the night before at Lake Central, a game that CP coach Mike Cronkhite and the girls would like to have back.

"We had an eight point lead the entire game until about three minutes to go," said Cronkhite. "Lake Central put on some pressure and they made a run and got us at the end. In our three losses, we were down three points with the ball at Chesterton with two minutes left. We were down four to Portage with two minutes to go. We were in all three losses. But to pull out this game against a quality opponent and a lot of quality players, that says a lot for our young kids."

The South County Tournament involving Boone Grove has switched from a two-day to a one-day format on Dec. 22. Boone will play Kouts at 12-noon and Morgan Township takes on Hebron at 2:00 p.m.

"It's all about stamina now," said Boone coach Candy Wilson. "The best team doesn't necessarily win. Like in our regional against Rochester (in 2003). They were the better team (in the second game of the day), but they were tired the second game and we weren't. That's why we beat them."

With no school on Dec. 22, it's going to be an all-day parade of South Porter County teams of all shapes and sizes.

"We're going to play JV and varsity on the same day," noted Wilson. "The athletic directors didn't like two days taken away over the holidays."

Wilson reports that the annual South County Tournament, which matches the four Porter County high schools south of US 30 (Morgan Township, Kouts, Hebron and Boone Grove) over the Christmas holidays, will be discontinued after next season.

"We see these teams all the time," Wilson explained of why nobody likes the South County Tournament. "We could play Hebron four times this season. I'd like to go to Indianapolis for a tournament."

The IHSAA allows a basketball team to play in two tournaments a season and PCC teams already play in the annual PCC championship tournament each January. There are very few holiday tournaments remaining in NW Indiana and one of them is the Hanover Central tournament, another tourney Boone probably would not like to enter because they've seen enough of the Lady Cats as well.

Cronkhite wouldn't mind finding a way to change the location of the Boone Grove game on Crown Point's schedule.

"We played Lake Central last night," he explained. "And then we play Valparaiso Tuesday. Nobody else played tonight. Us and Michigan City were the only teams that played tonight. We didn't talk about Boone all week. We had to concentrate on Lake Central. We came in at 3:00 p.m. this afternoon and we went through all of Boone Grove's sets. I'm pretty familiar with them from my time at Kouts. There's not a lot of new things for me."

Team /Record	1	2	3	4	Final
BOONE GROVE (6-1)	13	15	16	15	59
CROWN POINT (7-3)	12	13	14	21	60

Lady Bulldogs beat Boone Grove 60-59, finish nonconference schedule 6-0