PENDLETON — It was not a typical regular season, but when the postseason arrived Mt. Vernon just does what Mt. Vernon does.
Decimated by injuries throughout the season, the Marauders girls basketball team had a five-game losing streak in December, finished fourth in the Hoosier Heritage Conference, and were three games under .500 (10-13) heading into the Pendleton Heights Sectional.
Back to full health and thriving by the end of the regular season, Mt. Vernon rode that momentum all the way to a fourth straight sectional title.
On Saturday at Pendleton Heights High School, Mt. Vernon (13-13) beat rival New Palestine (14-11) 48-39 to claim another championship and berth into the regional round of the IHSAA Girls Basketball State Tournament series.
The Marauders made the best of their bad situation.
Indiana All-Star candidate Ellery Minch, starter Kaitlyn Laffey and key sub Reagan Britt all missed multiple games. For a team that typically had a six-player rotation, head coach Julie Shelton had to dig deep into her bench, and the junior varsity team, to find players with one-half of her regulars out of the lineup.
That’s how frosh JV guard Gabby Thomas got her chance.
Her JV days are done.
In Saturday’s title game, Thomas hit five 3-pointers and had a game-high 20 points to help lead the Marauders. It was the second time in school history Mt. Vernon has won four straight sectional titles. They won championships from 1976-79, the first four years the IHSAA sanctioned girls basketball.
“They just had a really, really good year of fighting through adversity and sticking with it,” Shelton said of her team. “The seniors have been there and wanted to be back, and at the end of the year they were really, really focused. The adversity and the injuries really helped us to get Gabby playing.”
Against New Pal, the Marauders hit 8 of 18 3-point attempts (44.4 percent) and had two three-pointers in each quarter. Their first two baskets in each quarter, except the third, were from 3-point range.
Thomas hit 5 of 6, including 4 of 4 in the second half.
“I didn’t think this would happen,” the 5-foot, 4-inch frosh said. “I was on JV and three people got hurt and I was kind of forced to play varsity.
“It feels great and I feel very lucky. I’m really happy I got to play varsity this year instead of waiting until next year. I was definitely nervous before the game, but once it started going I was just going with the flow.”
New Palestine’s Kylee Beranek scored the game’s first two points from the free-throw line, Mt. Vernon followed with 3s from Kanyonrae Kenny and Minch — whose long-range bomb was at least five feet behind the arc.
Thomas and senior Easton Wampler hit triples to start the second quarter. It gave Mt. Vernon its first double-digit lead, 14-4.
In the second half Thomas and New Palestine sophomore Kendra Moore, daughter of Dragons’ first-year head coach Craig Moore, had a 3-point shooting contest.
Moore’s first of three treys cut Mt. Vernon’s lead to 26-20 with 3:22 remaining in the third quarter. The next six points — and less than one minute after Moore had cut it to six — came on a pair of 3s from Thomas.
After two free throws at the end of the third quarter from New Palestine’s Natalie Sevier cut the margin to eight, 34-26, Thomas and Moore began trading shots.
Thomas opened the fourth quarter with her fourth trey of the game. It extended her team’s lead to 37-26 with 6:10 remaining. Ten seconds later Moore had cut it back to eight. One minute later, Thomas had scored from long range again, upping her club’s lead to 40-29 with five minutes left. Moore had an answer, knocking it back to eight, 40-32 with 4:43 remaining.
Mt. Vernon’s lead stayed around 8-to-12 points the rest of the game.
“Just unbelievable,” Shelton said of Thomas’s performance. “The confidence and the fearlessness to take big shots and to play on this stage as a freshman, she did a super job. She had a tremendous game and I’m super proud of her.”
“Gabby is amazing,” Minch added. “She’s been awesome all year. If it weren’t for some of us getting injured, I think coach said she might not have been on varsity, I would disagree with that statement. She’s been amazing from the beginning. I love that kid, she’s awesome!”
Along with Thomas’s 20, Minch, a DePaul signee, scored 16 points. She had eight in each half.
“We definitely had some adversity throughout the season whether it was injuries with the players, or even coach’s injury (Shelton suffered a broken leg, which she is still recovering from),” Minch said. “It messed up our flow for a little bit in the mid-season.
“Thankfully we were able to go on a couple of runs in our last few games and build momentum going into the sectional. I feel like that helped us to buy-in more of what coach (Shelton) was telling us. We should have done it from the beginning, but I think the momentum from the last few games of the season, a tough game against Anderson (to start the sectional) and Richmond, though it wasn’t as tough of a game, led us to here.”
Mt. Vernon was 4-11 at one time this season, and 5-11 before it returned to full strength for a Jan. 4 contest at East Central. The Marauders only losses in 2024 have been to IBCA No. 17 Noblesville, which beat No. 6 Hamilton Southeastern to win a sectional, and a down-to-the-wire loss to a 20-win Mooresville team.
They’ll take a six-game winning streak into Saturday’s 4 p.m. Decatur Central Regional final against top-ranked Lawrence Central.
“I never really thought [winning the sectional] was in doubt,” Minch said of claiming a fourth-straight championship. “There might have been times where I thought a game was in doubt, but I knew with coach Shelton, she’s such a great coach, I know with all the things she’s taught us throughout the year was really helping us stick together through those tough times. It really led us to this championship game.”
It was a great year for the Dragons, too.
With all-time leading scorer Isabella Gizzi graduating last year, the Dragons surprised many by not only working their way to a sectional title game, but earning a share of the HHC title, their first since 2019, and third overall.
Under the first-year head coach, the Dragons won 14 games and were victorious in six of their last seven before losing to the Marauders Saturday.
They beat HHC-favorite Pendleton Heights on Jan. 12 and clinched a share of the conference title with a win at Yorktown the final day of the regular season. They avenged their lone conference loss, an overtime defeat at home to Greenfield-Central in December, with a 42-35 first-round sectional win on Wednesday. And, got to the title game by defeating host Pendleton Heights for the second time this season, 46-44.
They’re a young team, too, with four sophomores playing key parts in the tournament (Moore, Sevier, Sadey Hughbanks and Kenna Tweedy), but they will miss seniors Allie Blum, Vivian Miller and Ella Holman.
Blum averaged 17.2 points per game on the year and Miller was the team’s second leading scorer at 11.5 per game.
On Saturday, Kendra Moore was their top scorer with a career-high 13, her previous career-best was a 10-point performance in the sectional win over Greenfield-Central. Miller had 11 in the title game.
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Mt. Vernon 48, New Palestine 39
Mt. Vernon;8;14;12;14;—;48
New Palestine;4;7;15;13;—;39
Mt. Vernon (13-13): Easton Wampler 2 2-4 7, Kaitlyn Laffey 0 0-2 0, Ellery Minch 5 5-6 16, Gabby Thomas 7 1-2 20, Kanyonrae Kenny 1 2-4 5, Reagan Britt 0 0-0 0. Totals: 15 10-18 48.
New Palestine (14-11): Kendra Moore 5 0-0 13, Kylee Beranek 0 2-2 2, Sadey Hughbanks 1 2-2 4, Allie Blum 2 1-2 5, Vivian Miller 3 4-8 11, Kenna Tweedy 1 0-0 2, Natalie Sevier 0 2-2 2. Totals: 12 11-16 039
3-point goals: Mt. Vernon 8 (Thomas 5, Wampler, Minch, Kenny). New Palestine 4 (Moore 3, Miller).
