GOSHEN – A Warsaw girls basketball season that was an uphill climb came to a close Saturday in the championship game of the Class 4A Goshen Sectional. Fourth-ranked Penn led by as many as 13 points in the first quarter and beat the Lady Tigers 64-33, as the Lady Kingsmen claimed their sixth-straight sectional crown. Warsaw, which finished the season at 11-14 after an 0-9 start, had trouble with Penn’s size, strength and offensive firepower. Lady Tigers coach Michelle Harter used a zone defense against Penn because of matchup issues, but allowed the Lady Kingsmen to spring free with second-chance baskets and five three-pointers, including four in the first half by Claire Carlton. When Warsaw had the ball, Harter said they rushed too many shots. “We were just a step slow tonight,” Harter said. “When you’re playing against a good team like Penn that can hit outside shots and they’ve got some big post players on the inside that can move and score, you have to be moving and be on your ‘A’ game. Tonight, we weren’t. “We overextended too much and let them get in some gaps and hit some easy shots. Carlton’s a great shooter and we lost her several times in the first half.” Harter watched Penn get too many second-chance points. “Zone was our best bet,” Harter said. “But the bad thing about zone is sometimes you miss assignments on blocking out (with our guards). We did that.” Warsaw, trying for a second-straight Goshen Sectional title, was led offensively by Madi Graham (14 points) and Dayton Groninger (11). Against Penn’s trapping defense, the Lady Tigers did have a scoreless drought of more than 12 minutes, spanning the end of the second quarter and the beginning of the fourth (Penn outpointed Warsaw 11-0 in the third quarter). “We rushed our shots and they didn’t fall,” Harter said. “We attacked and they blocked some shots and that got us hesitant. We started playing a little nervous.” Penn, coached by Kristi Kaniewski Ulrich, got 19 points from 6-foot-1 Camryn Buhr, 14 from Lindsy Kline and 10 from 6-4 Lindsay Chrise. “One of our keys tonight was to come out with a high level of focus and high intensity knowing that it’s extremely important to deliver the first blow,” Kaniewski Ulrich said after her team punched its ticket to Saturday’s LaPorte Regional. “We didn’t want to play from behind. We wanted to be in the driver’s seat and control the tempo out of the gate. “Our level of energy was high (in Friday’s semifinal win against Northridge and in Saturday’s championship against Warsaw).” Penn beat the Lady Tigers for the second time this season, having topped them 61-37 at Warsaw Nov. 24. Harter expressed her appreciation for the resilience of her team, which didn’t have a senior on the roster. “We had a rough start at 0-9,” Harter said. “I told them how proud I was of them for sticking together as a team, for believing in each other, believing in the coaching staff and what we wanted to do. And continuing to be positive and working hard every night. It would have been very easy for a young team to quit and they didn’t quit. “You could see that they still had that fire in their eyes. I told them that you are going to go a long way as adults when you continue and leave school because of being able to overcome adversity and continuing to battle through tough times.”
