Lady Wildcats erupt for 29-point 4th Qtr before falling 76-73 to Beecher in Holiday Tournament title game

CEDAR LAKE (1-3-2009) Some day, Hanover Central will win its own holiday girls basketball tournament.  But just because the Lady Cats lost to Beecher 76-73 in Saturday afternoon's final of the 2nd Annual Hanover 'Winter Classic' doesn't mean they didn't get anything out of it.

If you lose a low-scoring game you feel like you didn't do much.  But to lose 76-73 in high school basketball meant you put on quite a show.  Same loss.  But less of a hangover.

Beecher (11-3), which has lost three games by a combined total of 15 points, led 62-44 with 1:24 left in the third quarter and Hanover appeared incapable of stopping the visitors from Will County, Illinois.  But it wasn't over yet.

"We were up 18," said young Beecher coach Ken Akerman.  "Then we were down two or three.  Everything was going downhill.  We couldn't catch a break.  But I told the girls that we were proud of them because they didn't surrender and they made big free throws when they needed them."

What the small crowd will remember from this day is Hanover Central scoring the first 12 points of the final quarter and mounting a wild 26-5 run over 6-1/2 minutes to take a 70-67 lead with 1:33 to play on two foul shots by HC senior Jordan Kramer, who scored a season-high 30 points.

But Jenna Wehling scored on an offensive rebound to cut the lead to 70-69 with 1:20 left.  Hanover's Danielle Graham was fouled and she split two free throws with 48 seconds to go.
Senior Carissa Boekeloo, who had scored only two points all night, was fouled and sank the game tying free tosses with 42 seconds to play.

Hanover lost the ball and Beecher freshman Amari Griffin, scored a three-point play with 21 seconds to go, putting the Bobcats ahead 74-71.  HC's Abby Schweitzer scored on a pass from Graham to make it 74-73 with seven seconds to play, but two free throws by Kim Wilkoz, a 1,000-point career scorer, made it 76-73 with six seconds left.  Kramer, HC's veteran ball-handler, fouled Wilkoz, and left the game with her fifth foul.  That left HC unable to get the ball up the floor and get off a three-point shot in the final six seconds.

"There was less than 10 seconds left," said HC coach Doug Nelson.  "She had four fouls and Danielle had four fouls.  At that point, we had to stop the clock.  Jordan did what she had to do.  That was a great comeback.  But how do you get them to play with that kind of urgency for 32 minutes?  Last night (in the 75-40 semifinal win over Clark) we scored 30 in the first quarter."

"It was tough one to lose," admitted Kramer, who scored 21 second half points and recorded a season-high 10 assists against Beecher.  "We didn't know anything about them except that they had one really good scorer.  They didn't miss many shots."

Wilkoz, a 5-foot-9 hard-driving guard, had 28 points after three quarters.  She passed the 1,000-point mark for her career when she scored 27 in Friday's semifinals, a 56-46 win over Bishop Noll.  But everybody from Beecher was scoring in the second and third quarters.  Wehling and Wilkoz combined for 21 third quarter points.

"We got beat up the sidelines," said Nelson.  "We got beat on the baseline.  For most of the game, we just didn't stop anybody.  We showed a lot of guts coming back like we did.  But we've got to finish off games when we have the lead."

Hanover is surprisingly ineffective (they almost always play three guards) in running time off the clock when they are ahead.  Some teams just never master that delay mode.

"We may have to keep attacking," said Nelson, of future games.  "We may not be able to hold the ball.  We may have to keep going to the basket."

'Going to the basket' may be the lasting legacy of these two days for Hanover, which had not scored more than 52 points against anyone with a winning record in the first half of the season.

"We scored 70 two nights in a row," said Nelson.  "We showed a lot of fight.  And we had the lead."

LADY CAT NOTES:  Hanover junior Kayla Higginbotham represented HC at the 'Region Rumble' basketball tournament's three-point shooting contest.

"She got to the second round," reported coach Doug Nelson.  "We had a shootout here and she won.  Jordan (Kramer) hit seven and Kayla hit eight.  Then Jordan hit six three pointers in the game yesterday and six more today.  I think she was trying to send me a message."

Garrett, the team that eliminated Hanover in the Culver Regional last year, is undefeated this season.  The Railroaders (13-0) beat Columbia City 41-30 and Homestead 42-32 to win the Garrett Shootout last Saturday.  If the Railroaders can sweep 1A No. 6 Southern Wells (8-1), a team they will see twice this month, the Railroaders will almost certainly finish the regular season at 21-0.  Garrett is in the Fort Wayne area (north of the city in DeKalb County), but they do not play any of the teams in the Summit Athletic Conference.

Garrett's closest game (Garrett has won 11 games by 10 points or more) was a 41-36 win over Leo and both Leo and Garret play in the Allen County Tournament this month.  But Leo drew Southern Wells in the quarterfinals so it's likely Garrett will face Southern Wells.

Hanover continues to raise money for the family of junior Abby Schweitzer, whose home for her family of six burned down the week before Christmas.  The family is still staying in a host home while they try to get in position to rent a house.  The Schweitzer's house was a total loss and while it was insured, reportedly things inside it were not.  Hanover's players decided they simply had to do something.

"It was pretty much the four seniors," said HC senior Jordan Kramer.  "But everybody chipped in.  They're the kind of people who would do it for you if you were in that situation.  We ended up raising over $9,000.

Calumet and Andrean, which are regular foes of Hanover Central, have also helped Hanover with donations for the Schweitzer family.

Beecher coach Ken Akerman explained that Illinois schools have a big scheduling advantage over Indiana high school basketball teams.

"We can play a lot more games than they can," he said.  "Over here, you are allowed two tournaments.  We can play 16 games and five tournaments and it doesn't matter how long the tournaments are.  So we can play 31 games."

Hanover left the Momence Illinois Holiday Tournament two years ago to start their own playoff.  Hopes that the tourney would expand to eight team have not yet materialized and an odd opportunity has arisen.

"Momence called and asked us to come back," reports coach Doug Nelson.  "We asked them to come here."

Clark, which presently is in the four-team field at Hanover, has not been competitive, gong 0-4 in two seasons.  Momence, a neighbor and a regular rival of Beecher, could host their own tourney and play at Hanover because of the five-tourney Illinois limit.  Hanover conceivably could host their own tournament and play in the eight-team Momence playoff if they simply counted the two games in their tourney as two individual games and added Momence as a tournament.  Hanover's other tournament is the annual Porter County Conference (PCC) tournament in late January.

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Revised: January 07, 2009 .