SYRACUSE - With 6:37 left in the second quarter of Tuesday's NorthWood/Wawasee girls basketball game, the scoreboard went blank.

But the power outage lasted only briefly and the correct score returned, much to Wawasee coach Kem Zolman's chagrin.

This was one game where Zolman wouldn't have minded seeing the scoreboard stay off. The numbers - 23-6 - flickered back to life and smacked Zolman with a dose of the unpleasant reality.

Zolman's Warriors trailed 23-6, and by halftime buried themselves in a 37-10 hole. A 38-point second half by the Warriors made the score seem a little more respectable, but they still lost 61-48.

"Sorry we couldn't give you a better show," Zolman said.

When he said show, he meant it. For the first time, Channel 46 was televising a girls basketball game as its game of the week, and NorthWood vs. Wawasee earned the honor.

Wawasee Athletic Director Mary Hurley estimated 2,200 people attended the girls basketball game, the Warriors' largest regular season girls basketball crowd in years. Four people sitting in the stands included college scouts from Butler, Illinois, Michigan State and Wisconsin.

Wawasee sophomore forward Shanna Zolman, who leads the state in scoring with 33.8 points per game, grabs the headlines.

NorthWood was more than happy do its thing -Êwin. NorthWood coach Steve Neff upped his record to 391-96 (.803) with the victory.

"To play somebody like Shanna," Neff said, "it fires you up."

Sophomore center Carol Duncan led NorthWood, which improved to 5-2 overall and 1-1 in the NLC, with 15 points and eight rebounds. Senior guard Andee Morris added 13 points and four assists. Sophomore forward Katie Chamberlin delivered 10 points and four steals, while junior guard Kasey Chamberlin chipped in with 10 points, six rebounds, four assists and three steals.

Shanna Zolman, hampered by the stomach flu and a 102-degree temperature, scored 26 on 9-of-15 shooting from the field to lead Wawasee. She missed the first couple hours of school but arrived at 11 a.m., making her eligible to play.

Neff, who said recent practices ran smoothly because his girls relished the challenge of facing Zolman, played the current defense of choice against her, a box-and-one. He assigned junior guard Kasey Chamberlin the task of sticking to Zolman in the first half. Another NorthWood player would usually help out Chamberlin on a double-team when Zolman touched the ball.

Neff's plan worked. Zolman scored four on 1-of-5 shooting from the floor.

"We played great defense in the first half," Neff said. "We talked out on the floor. We knew where Zolman was all the time. We wanted her to go by Kasey and somebody else. Shanna tried to get her teammates involved in the first half."

Kasey Chamberlin gladly accepted her coach's challenge.

"I was so pumped," she said. "Shanna's a good player. She will get her points. But it's a lot of fun to play against the good players like her."

Offensively, the Panthers took what the Warriors gave them, and they gave them plenty: 14 turnovers. NorthWood converted 11 of the turnovers into points.

If the Panthers weren't scoring layups on turnovers, they were scoring layups on backdoor plays that surprised a Wawasee team starting three freshmen and two sophomores.

Five NorthWood players scored between five and nine points in the first half. Kasey Chamberlin had five, Duncan six, reserve Carrie Haney seven, Katie Chamberlin eight and Morris nine.

"We have a stinkin' young team, and sometime I won't be able to use that excuse," Zolman said. "But for now, I'm gonna use it to the hilt. I don't know what 14-year-olds are thinking about TV cameras at a game.

"If you say it looked like a bunch of junior high kids out there, you have to remember, just eight months ago, some of them were."

So good was NorthWood's first half - the Panthers led 37-10, they held the state's leading scorer to four points, and they made 17 of 31 field goals (55 percent) -ÊNeff admitted he could find little to criticize.

"We did have two girls with two fouls in the first half," he said. "We have to work on that."

Kem Zolman attacked his team with a verbal hammer between the eyes. "At halftime I told them that was the most embarrassing half of basketball I had ever seen," he said.

Shanna Zolman asserted herself in the second half, scoring 22 points on 8-of-10 shooting from the field. After four turnovers in the first half, NorthWood threw the ball away 12 times in the second half. Zolman's offense and NorthWood's carelessness added up to a 38-24 second-half advantage for Wawasee.

"Shanna looked for her shot more in the second half," Neff said. "We've watched her play since the fifth and sixth grades. I don't know if you can say she will be the best girl to ever come out of the state of Indiana, but she will be the best girl to ever come out of northern Indiana. I see no weaknesses with her."

But as Kem Zolman knows, Shanna Zolman cannot win games by herself.

"Teams have our number right now," he said. "All they do is play box-and-one and forget about the rest of our players. We've seen a box-and-one on Shanna the last three games. That says something about Shanna as a player, to have four in the first half and end up with 26. We just need the other kids to come up a level."

After NorthWood ousted Wawasee in last year's Wawasee Sectional, Zolman said Wawasee still possessed a mental block as far as believing it could beat NorthWood. He hopes the second half of Tuesday's game helps, because the teams could meet again in this year's Wawasee Sectional.

While Tuesday's loss may have not been a shock, Zolman wants to see evidence that Wawasee is closing the gap on NorthWood.

"We outscored them 38-24 in the second half, so that should be a big confidence-booster for us against them," he said. "But NorthWood has a lot of teams' numbers. NorthWood plays very good defense and does not kill itself with turnovers.

"The second half, we played basketball the way Wawasee should play basketball. But we waited until the second half. Basketball's been played that way for years around here. Until we decide to play hard from the tipoff, we don't have a program."

NorthWood does, and Neff said the win sent a message.

"I would hope so, especially since it was on their home court," he said. "Our No. 1 goal every year is winning a sectional championship. (Wawasee) will be a lot better by sectional time, and we have to come here." [[In-content Ad]]