Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
SYRACUSE - NorthWood's Anne-Marie Zell couldn't have asked for a better gift.
On Saturday night, her 18th birthday, her team won the Wawasee 3A sectional after decimating Angola 78-41.
"I didn't know it was her birthday until the students started chanting," said NorthWood coach Steve Neff. "It was nice to see her get the time she got tonight."
Zell was 1 of 4 from the field and 1 of 4 from the charity stripe scoring three points. NorthWood senior Natalie Will led all scorers with 17 points connecting on 8 of 14 field goal attempts. Amy Zercher added 14 points and eight steals. Angola was led in the scoring column by junior Emily Leininger's nine points to go along with 13 rebounds.
The win pushes the Panthers' season record to 20-3. The Hornets finish their season with a 13-11 record. The win was also NorthWood's 16th sectional championship, their seventh in a row.
"All of them are great," said Neff when asked if this year's championship outweighed the others. "Eight years ago we got beat and I never thought we'd get another one. We'll just keep plugging away and keep working."
What makes the 1999 sectional championship trophy so impressive is the Panthers beat their two opponents by an average of 37.5 points. NorthWood ousted state-leading scorer Shanna Zolman and Wawasee 76-38 Thursday night.
"I thought we played good defense," said Neff. "Congratulate Angola, this whole sectional is loaded with young players. This will be a good sectional the next three or four years and I'm looking forward to it. We just got a few steals and got up early."
A few would be an understatement. The Panthers stole the ball from the Hornets 14 times and forced them into 25 total turnovers. Angola made just three steals as the Panthers were victim to only nine turnovers.
And as far as getting up early: NorthWood scored five seconds into the game on a Angie Callander field goal to take a 2-0 lead. With 5:36 remaining in the opening quarter, Jill Gainey made good on a three-pointer to bring Angola within one at 6-5. The Hornets never got that close again. NorthWood went into the second stanza on the strength of a 16-2 run that gave them a 22-7 lead.
"We're trying to build a program as best we can," said Angola coach Doug Curtis. "To do that you have to play the best teams and we don't play teams of that caliber. We have to get so much stronger and this is only our third sectional final in school history. Our program is finally getting stronger; for three years we won a total of one game. The question is, do they learn something from this?"
NorthWood continued its dominance in the second stanza outscoring the Hornets 17-5 giving them a 39-12 halftime advantage.
Angola scored the first two points after the break on a Camilla Gangloff field goal but the Panthers responded by going on an 18-0 run that pushed their lead to 57-15 with 2:40 remaining in the third quarter and 62-22 at the onset of the final frame.
"We had our little spurts again," said Neff, "but I thought everybody contributed."
With the game well in the Panther's hands Angola put together a fine fourth quarter effort causing NorthWood to commit five turnovers and were only outscored 16-12 in the final frame. At this point both teams had gone to the bench. All but one Panther scored in the win.
"We won 13 games this year," said Curtis, "I didn't know if we'd score 10 points in our first game. We had four freshmen out there in the end."
NorthWood will host the regional and will play the winner of the Plymouth sectional.
