Lady Wildcats edge Boone 53-50 to tie for PCC lead

A USA-365.com Special Report by Mark Smith
01-30-2009

Thursday, January 29, 2009 - Porter County Conference girls basketball in PORTER TOWNSHIP, IN

HANOVER (53) Danielle Graham 5-6-16, Jessica Martinez 5-2-12, Abby Schweitzer 5-2-12, Jordan Kramer 3-3-9, Courtney Pattison 2-0-4, Sammy Huffnagle 1-0-2.  TOTALS: 20 (13-18) 53.

BOONE (50) Kelly Dobson 3-1-8, Mary Kieffer 2-1-5, Jordan Chester 2-1-5, Emily Strilich 10-2-22, Brittany Shaffer 1-0-3, Brittany DeWell 3-1-9, Cassie Witt 0-0-0.   TOTALS: 21 (6-12) 50.

FOUL SHOTS:  HANOVER (13-18, 72.2%) Graham 6-8, Kramer 3-5, Martinez 2-2, Schweitzer 2-3;  BOONE (6-12, 50%) Kieffer 1-2, Dobson 1-2, Chester 1-2, Strilich 2-4, DeWell 1-2.

3-GOALS: HANOVER (0); BOONE (2) Brittany Shaffer, Brittany DeWell.

Senior guard Lindsay Martinez prepares to shoot a freethrow in the Lady Wildcats' 53-50 win over Boone Grove, 01-29-2009. (All photos by Mark Smith)

Lining up on the foul line are Emily Strilich (21) and Megan Dewell (24) of Boone around Hanover's Abby Schweitzer (23).

Jordan Kramer (11) is being guarded by Jordan Chester ( 23) and Mary Kiefer (11).  (All photos by Mark Smith)

The girls with the cup include Danielle Graham (holding the Kup).

PORTER TOWNSHIP (1-29-2009) A lot of times, a victory says more about the winning team than it does about the group that loses.  Thursday's Hanover Central victory over Porter County Conference (PCC) champion Boone Grove certainly said a lot more about the Lady Cats than it did about the host Wolves.  But it may have said even more about the PCC.

Hanover, which lost to Boone 59-56 in the quarterfinals of the PCC tournament (won by Boone), watched the Wolves miss four jump shots in the final 10 seconds and recorded their biggest upset of the season 53-50, on a very cold Thursday night in Porter County.

Hanover's win, which gave them possession of the PCC Kup, the league's eagerly coveted traveling trophy, for the first time in five years, threw the race for first place into chaos and boosted the PCC's status as Northwest Indiana's most competitive league.

"This was really big," said coach Doug Nelson, who probably was not aware that the win moved his personal record to 30-29 at Hanover over his three-year run at the Cedar Lake high school.

"This the most amazing feeling ever," said senior guard Lindsay Martinez, who scored 12 points, including six in the fourth quarter.  "I was crying I was so happy.  The last time we had the Kup?  I could not tell you for sure.  My eighth grade year?

The 'Kup', an aging beer mug that the school in possession paints with its school colors when they win it, was turned over to Hanover from Boone after the Lady Cats (10-6) held a slim fourth quarter lead and survived a wild Boone final possession.  A small crowd of perhaps 150 sounded like 1,000, cheering in true Indiana fashion like this was some type of championship game as sub-freezing winds whipped around outside.

"They've got two really solid guards," said Boone's Candy Wilson, who cannot see Hanover again until a potential (and very distant) Class 2A Culver Regional championship game. "And a lot of our scoring comes from our forwards.  Guards can play through fatigue.  Forwards can't.  It wasn't our night.  I could feel it.  We got our 50 points.  We can't let them score 50 points.  We couldn't shut them down.  They shot the ball really well."

Hanover, which was coming off back-to-back PCC wins over South Central and Washington Township, jumped to a 12-5 lead at Boone, which was coming off a three-game sweep of the league championship tourney and the school's 11th PCC tournament title.

Tradition says that the winner of the PCC tournament is the league champ (by league rules, the two crowns are separate), but a small band of loud Cedar Lake folks cheered on the Lady Cats as if Thursday's game was an NBA playoff.

Neither team led by more than four points during the entire second half, and it was Jordan Kramer's driving basket and two free throws which gave Hanover a 50-46 lead with 1:10 left.  But 6-foot-1 Emily Strilich, who scored 15 of her 22 points in the second half, sank a 10-foot turnaround shot to cut the lead to 50-48 with 57 seconds to play.

Martinez, a 5-foot-3 guard, who went scoreless in some early season contests, sank two foul shots with 51 seconds left to restore the lead of four.

Strilich again scored on an offensive rebound with 36 seconds to go over the Hanover front line, which has no player taller than 5-foot-9.  After Kramer split two foul shots with 18 seconds to go, Wilson called a time out and set up a final shot.

Boone got a shot and three rebounds, the last one a 20-foot potential game-tying three point shot by Kelly Dobson.  All the shots missed and Hanover celebrated moving into first place with two league games left.

"Four shots," said Wilson.  "Now a couple of them were two point shots and we'll have to talk about that.  I can't believe we missed four shots, but these girls had won 13 out of 14."

Nelson watched the final four shots from the other end of the floor.

"I was on my knees praying," he said with a smile.  "We couldn't get the rebound.  Coach Candy's kids are always tough." 

"Boone and us.  We've been big rivals," Martinez explained of the crowd noise.  "They got us in the (PCC) tournament and it was a game we could have won.  It was a big game.  We had to get it."

Martinez, who scored in double figures for the third time (she had a season best 18 two nights earlier in a 56-41 win over Washington Township), has made a late-season comeback that has been gratifying to watch.

"Coach gave me some confidence," she said.  "My confidence was very low for awhile.  He put that in me.  It helped out a lot.  He just told me, 'keep going'.  Go to the basket if I'm not shooting well.  Just keep going."

Nelson said, "She's got that awkward looking jump shot, but it works for her.  We need her.  We had three girls in double figures again tonight.  That's the way it's been the last few weeks."

Hanover needed to win at home (Jan. 31) against Kouts and on the road (Feb. 7) against Morgan Township to win the school's first regular season PCC title since 2000.

"When we started the week," said Nelson, who has watched his squad beat South Central, Washington Township and Boone Grove in a six-day span, "we had to win them all.  We've won three.  There's no letdown.  We're healthy.  What's good is, we practice one day and then we play."

LADY CAT NOTES:  Nobody's got a better state tournament draw than Hanover Central.  The Lady Cats (10-6) drew a first round bye at the River Forest Sectional in the 34th Indiana State Tournament and they drew Lake Station (0-16) as a semifinal foe on Feb. 13.  Lake Station has lost 30 games in a row and averages 18 points per game.

The good draw ends at the regional, where the River Forest Sectional champion, which is favored to be Hanover, faces 2A No. 3 Garrett (17-1), a dominant team that defeated Hanover by 37 points last season in the semifinals of the 2A Culver Regional.

Boone Grove also got a good draw for the state tournament.  They got a first round bye in the six-team Knox Sectional, so they do not have to travel to Starke County for a quarterfinal game.  Boone also drew a path that would not have them face powerful Garret until the regional championship game.

Hanover's win over Boone raised the possibility of five teams finishing in first place in the seven game regular season.  If Kouts defeats Hanover at Hanover Saturday afternoon at 2:30 p.m., Hanover and Kouts will both have two Porter County Conference (PCC) losses.  Hanover will have one game to play against Morgan Township (3-14), a game HC is likely to win.  Kouts (13-3, 2-2 PCC) will have one game to play at South Central (4-12) on Feb. 3, another game where they will be heavily favored.

Boone has already finished at 5-2 in league play and if Wasngton wins over South Central on Feb. 4, the Senators will end up with a 5-2 PCC record.  That leaves Hebron (9-8, 4-2), which only has to play a makeup game with LaCrosse (3-12).  The odds of Hebron losing to LaCrosse are slim.

Only one five-way first place tie, a near mathematical impossibility in an eight-team league, is on record as having ever occurred in the history of Northwest Indiana high school basketball.

Seven years ago, five teams tied for the 2002 PCC boys title as the top five teams all finished with records of 5-2 in league play.  There is an extremely remote mathematical possibility of six teams tying for first place with records of 4-3 but it would take a bizarre series of reversals of form.

This kind of thing can only occur in a league where most team are fairly equal and nobody has a great player who can overwhelm all opposition.  Most larger leagues have a preeminent team in most years.  The odds of five teams tying at 5-2 is almost too high to calculate.

Hanover last won the PCC Kup with a 53-52 win over Boone Grove in the quarterfinals of the 2004 PCC tournament at Morgan Township.  They lost it 10 days later, losing 69-34 in a rematch against Boone.

The Kup can only change hands when two league members meet, so the only way Boone can regain it this season is if they meet Hanover in the Culver regional.  That assumes that Hanover wins its final two league games.  Hanover does not have a PCC team in its sectional.

Boone coach Candy Wilson said that the Wolves made $500 in Saturday's Coaches vs. Caner' fundraiser.  All coaches and JV players wore pink T-shirts in an effort to support cancer research.  The money will be donated to the American Cancer Association.  A similar fundraiser at Hanover in 2008 raised $400.  This will probably be an annual event when these two teams play.

2002 PORTER COUNTY BOYS
Team	Record	Offense	Defense
Hebron	5-2 (17-6)	66.9	56.9
Kouts	5-2 (16-8)	73.7	64.6
Morgan Twp.	5-2 (15-8)	60.6	52.5
Boone Grove	5-2 (15-9)	57.1	54.0
Wheeler	5-2 (12-10)	65.7	61.5
Hanover Central	2-5 (6-15)	52.0	61.1
Washington Twp.	1-6 (5-15)	49.9	56.4
LaCrosse	0-7 (5-16)	51.9	57.7

Copyright © 2009 USA-365.com and Meyer Multimedia Services, a division of Meyer Broadcasting Corp.  All rights reserved.
Revised: February 27, 2009 .