INDIANAPOLIS — Holiday tournaments, just like postseason play, sometimes you just have to survive and advance.
Eastern Hancock’s girls basketball team, ranked No. 2 in the Indiana Coaches of Girls Sports Association Class 2A poll and receiving votes in the Indiana Basketball Coaches Association (all classifications) rankings, defeated Class 4A Elkhart 60-49 Saturday afternoon to earn a spot in the championship game of the Lawrence North Wildcat Invitational.
Eastern Hancock moved on to today’s 6:45 p.m. title game against Lawrence North (12-3), ranked No. 10 in the Class 4A poll and No. 8 by the IBCA.
The Royals improved to 14-0, but it wasn’t easy.
Eastern Hancock hit its first four shots of the game to jump out to an 11-2 lead. They led the entire game, but a hard-trapping Lions defense caused problems throughout the 32 minutes.
Eastern Hancock 6-foot senior center Ruby White and some good perimeter shooting got the Royals going.
White opened scoring with a three-point play. Brooklyn Willis and Sammie Bolding followed with 3-point field goals and White scored again for an 11-2 advantage less than three minutes into the game.
Elkhart’s traps and pressure caused turnovers leading to easier opportunities for the Lions. A pair of free throws, another bucket and four quick points off turnovers enabled the Lions to cut it to one point, 11-10.
The Royals got their lead back to nine in the second period before the Lions, again behind its strong defense, knocked it back down to four.
Eastern Hancock’s Camryn Andrus scored to give the Royals a 26-17 lead. Elkhart answered with the next seven points. In the final minute, Bolding scored on a runner in the lane and Willis hit another 3 to give EH a 31-24 lead.
It was more of the same in the third quarter, the Lions defense helped cut the margin to four before some hot shooting and good ball movement returned the advantage back to double figures.
Elkhart, on a bucket by Jordynn Johnson cut it to 34-30, at the 6:05 mark. The Royals answered with a 10-0 run.
Willis hit her third trey of the game. Kenzie Koch scored off a nice feed from White and later added a bucket on a drive to bump the advantage to 11 points, 41-30. Koch returned the favor to White, finding the center underneath for a bucket and a foul. White hit the free throw for a 44-30 lead with 3:39 left in the quarter.
The Royals lead was between eight and 13 points the entire fourth quarter.
“We don’t face that pressure night-in and night-out during the season,” Eastern Hancock coach Shari Doud said. “It makes for an ugly game, in general. We had a hard time getting out of traps and had a hard time convincing the kids we needed somebody to cut to the middle. That pressure bothered us. T0 get away with a win, as ugly as it was, we can still take something from it moving forward for (postseason) tournament time.
“This was kind of that atmosphere. We don’t play teams that press like that and trap like that and have the speed they do. That’s no disrespect to who we play, just a reality. That’s what we’ll see tonight (against Lawrence North).”
Koch, the freshman point guard, was in foul trouble much of the game, but still finished with a game-high 22 points. White scored 14 and Willis and Bolding each had nine.
Shaniyah Stout led Elkhart with 13 points.
“Elkhart won the energy battle today, by far,” Doud said. “Normally we win the energy battle, but they were just that step quicker than us everywhere.”
“We hit shots,” the coach added, on how her team overcome some of its struggles. “We didn’t rebound well. There were a lot of things we did not do well so it has to come down to hitting shots and hitting free throws. We didn’t get a lot of second-chance points off the glass like we normally do. It was good, as a team, that we shot a decent percentage and hit free throws as well.
The Royals were 13 of 17 (76.5 percent) at the line. Elkhart hit just 7 of 16 (43.7 percent) from the stripe and made just 1 of 8 (12.5 percent) in the fourth quarter.
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Eastern Hancock 60, Elkhart 49
Elkhart;12;12;12;13;—;49
Eastern Hancock;15;16;15;14;—;60
Elkhart (8-8): Shaniyah Stout 5 2-2 13, Taylor Higgins 3 0-0 6, Christa Porter 1 0-2 2, Jaya Johnson 3 0-2 7, Jordynn Johnson 2 5-6 9, Shaniyah Hughes 4 0-2 8, Nashae’ Joiner 0 0-0 0, Brendayah Dale 1 0-2 2, Shondaya Jackson 0 0-0 0, Elizabeth Higgins 0 0-0 0, A. Martinez 1 0-0 2. Totals: 20 7-16 49.
Eastern Hancock (14-0): Brooklyn Willis 3 0-0 9, Makenzie O’Neal 0 2-2 2, Ruby White 6 2-2 14, Sammie Bolding 3 2-4 9, Kenzie Koch 6 7-9 22, Sydney Springman 0 0-0 0, Camryn Andrus 1 0-0 2, Kiersten Judd 1 0-0 2. Totals: 20 13-17 60.
3-point goals: Elkhart 2 (Ja. Johnson, Stout), Eastern Hancock 7 (Willis 3, Koch 3, Bolding)
