ELKHART - The Warsaw Lady Tigers (13-7) couldn't have asked for better circumstances against the Class 4A, 10th-ranked Elkhart Memorial Lady Crimson Chargers (17-3) Thursday.
A tweaked ankle slowed Memorial junior Jada Buggs and kept her out of the first quarter, and the Chargers went 0 for 10 from three-point range. Despite those factors, the Chargers still found a way to prevail in the Northern Lakes Conference closer for both girls basketball squads, 47-41 in Elkhart.The win guarantees Memorial a share of the NLC crown with a 6-1 mark, sharing the title with Plymouth and Wawasee, if the Warriors can defeat the Northridge Lady Raiders tonight in Middlebury.
"I'm proud of our team for beating Warsaw, which is a good team," Memorial coach Larry Fielstra said. "We've got a piece of the NLC title again, which is nice. Hopefully we can get a chance to play them again next week."
The two squads have the potential to match up again next Friday in the semifinal at Sectional 4, held at Warsaw Community High School. That is unless 5-14 Elkhart Central pulls off the huge upset in Tuesday's first-round game against Memorial. Warsaw is in the semifinal via a bye.
"It's not an ideal situation," Fielstra said of potentially playing the same team twice in eight days.
Memorial's 35-percent shooting night was also not ideal, but the 22 offensive rebounds, which led to 21 second-chance points, helped cover that up.
"That's one thing we talked about," Warsaw coach Michelle Harter said about rebounding. "If we were going to come out here tonight and be successful, we needed to rebound. That's one thing that let us down. We're running toward the basket, instead of turning and finding people to keep them out."
Rebounding may not have been Fielstra's biggest concern coming in, but with an off-shooting night from his girls, it did become very important.
"It's a good thing we were getting the second-chance points, because the first shots weren't going in very often," Fielstra said of his team, which shot 47-percent as a team this year. "It was just not a very good shooting night for us."
As if the second-chance points were tough enough, Memorial also scored seven third-chance points, the last three being the most devastating to the Tigers.
Following a Kelci Freds three-pointer that gave Warsaw a 37-35 lead with 2:50 remaining, Memorial regained the lead following a one-minute possession.
After playing strong defense, Warsaw forced Memorial into a missed three-pointer, which bounced off the rim, then bounced on the floor twice before Memorial sophomore Akyah Taylor picked it up. The Chargers then missed another shot, this time in the lane, before Buggs grabbed the second offensive rebound of the possession, put it in the basket and drew the foul. After hitting her free throw, Memorial was up 38-37.
"Coming in, I didn't think Jada was going to play," Fielstra said of Buggs, who injured her right ankle in a 48-45 loss at South Bend Clay Tuesday. "She came in, gutted it out, but she wasn't herself. She was a little more stationery than normal."
Following the Buggs' conversion, freshman Brionna Barnett picked up a steal, and netted another basket seven seconds later, sucking the air out of the Warsaw faithful.
A bucket by Warsaw junior Cendall Ogle with 1:05 cut the lead to 40-39, but five-straight points by Memorial put the game out of reach.
The loss can almost be directly attributed to rebounding, and Taylor was the biggest reason for Memorial's 38-22 advantage on the glass.
On top of scoring 18 of Memorial's first 20 points on her way to a game-high 26, Taylor also hauled in 14 rebounds, routinely nabbing boards out of the hands of Tigers.
"She's just so quick and athletic," Harter said of Taylor. "When she shoots the ball, she's automatically taking off. She's not sitting there waiting to see if it goes in or not. She's just going after it."
A thorn in the side of the Chargers was Freds, who eclipsed the 20-point mark for the third time in four games, netting 22 points on 8-for-14 shooting, 5-for-7 from three-point range.
"Kelci got loose on a couple 3s, which had been our main focus," Fielstra said of Freds, who kept her team in the game from outside the three-point arc. "That's a little bit disappointing."
Outside of Freds' performance, Warsaw's next leading scorer had four points, an accomplishment made by senior Alex Glenn, junior Sarah Shilling and sophomore Kayla Stout.
"We need to have three or four people in double figures every night," Harter said. "We kicked the ball inside sometimes, but didn't make some of the shots. Part of it was us thinking about them blocking our shots. We hesitated a little bit, instead of ball-faking and going up strong."
If the squads do meet up again in sectionals, Harter now knows what must be worked on, and her girls now have a feel of the speed and athleticism they'll need to deal with.
"Now they kind of have an idea of what it will be like Friday night," Harter said.
