NAPPANEE – In the opening round of Class 3A Sectional 21, Wawasee was overmatched and Tippecanoe Valley played itself out of a victory. Playing at NorthWood High School, the Wawasee Lady Warriors (10-11) and the Lady Panthers (20-3) opened the girls basketball sectional with the hosts claiming a 53-29 victory. West Noble (15-7) followed that by holding off Tippecanoe Valley (7-13) by a 60-58 score. The victorious teams advance to Friday's semifinals, with NorthWood facing Fairfield at 6 p.m., followed by West Noble against Lakeland. NorthWood 53, Wawasee 29 Opening the sectional against the third-ranked team in Class 3A, Wawasee coach Kem Zolman knew his team was in for tough fight. “I have to give our girls a lot of credit for heart and just banging in there with them,” Zolman said. “You look at (NorthWood), and you have to go out there thinking, 'Oh my goodness. Coach says we can do this - right.’ They really did believe that, and I honestly believe that in their hearts.” Facing a team it had lost to 74-41 back on Jan. 5 in Syracuse, the Lady Warriors trailed the entire game, as NorthWood sophomore Jordyn Frantz started the game with a three-pointer in the first 12 seconds. That bucket gave the Lady Panthers a lead they didn't relinquish and and an advantage that grew to 16-3 after one quarter and 26-9 at the half. “Kem came out with a nice plan – the triangle-and-two (defense) and he did what he thought he had to do to win the game,” NorthWood coach Steve Neff said. “They actually executed it fairly well. They slowed us down, but thank goodness we had enough to get a lead early and maintain.” The defense was designed to slow down NorthWood's post players, mainly 5-foot-11 junior forward Morgan Olson. Despite Wawasee's best effort, Olson finished the game with 20 points and 16 rebounds, going 6-of-6 in the final quarter. Along with Olson, Frantz had 15 points and eight rebounds, while senior Savannah Bley posted four points, six rebounds and four assists. For Wawasee, senior KiLee Knafel once again led the way, netting 19 points on 7-of-21 shooting, while leading the team with 10 rebounds in her final high school game. “What a career Knafel had,” Neff said about the IUSB-bound Knafel. “I think IUSB got a steal in her because we were all over her most of the time, but she kept her composure.” Knafel leaves Wawasee as the No. 2 scorer in the school's history with 1,651 points, 513 as a senior. “We won't make up 24 points a game by a player next year,” Zolman said. “You'll miss that. I'm really happy for KiLee, because after four years of high school, it wasn't a normal four years for her. She went through adversity. This senior class has seen the highs and the lows. We've won a sectional with them and gone through maybe our worst year with them. There's a lot of adversity that goes with this group.” The senior class, which includes Alexis Blunk and Cassie Martinez, had its run end, but it didn't end at the hands of any slouch team. “That's a state contender right there,” Zolman said of NorthWood. “We've been there to know what that looks like and we just gave it our best shot.” West Noble 60, Tippecanoe Valley 58 After watching NorthWood punch its ticket into Friday's semis, the Tippecanoe Valley Lady Vikings hoped to do the same, but fell short. Committing eight first-quarter turnovers, the Lady Vikings looked more like a team playing its first game than one playing its 20th. “There were times when I felt like we rushed things and made some really bad decisions on the offensive end, as far as where to throw the ball,” Valley coach Chris Kindig said of his team, which committed 28 turnovers in the loss. “Early, we also had a lot of two-foot shots that we missed. Those come back to haunt you. We lost by two.” Through much of the game, the two teams seemed to be playing like they were at open gym, as Valley rushed things, then West Noble also hurried, getting down the court in a hurry for a layup attempt. The Lady Chargers' up-tempo offense didn't result in many made layups but it did send them to the free throw line a lot. Of Valley's 15 team fouls, 14 sent West Noble to the line, where it made 21 of 26, while Valley made just 3 of 4. Despite the frantic pace, the two teams went back and forth until West Noble opened the fourth quarter with a 16-4 run, turning a 44-39 lead into a 55-43 advantage with 3:50 remaining. “It was just them hitting some shots that they hadn't been hitting earlier in the game,” Kindig said. “That gave them that margin that was hard for us to make up.” Despite the game seeming to be out of reach, Valley junior Cara Hoffman began to heat up, hitting three treys in about a minute and twenty seconds, helping to cut the lead to 58-52 with 1:30 left. Following a miss by West Noble senior center Haley Richardson, Valley sophomore Caylie Teel hit a bucket, slicing the lead to 58-54 with 1:10 remaining. Off an inbound pass, Lady Chargers junior Kelsie Peterson missed an ill-advised three-point attempt, which Teel then made her pay for by hitting another shot at the other end, leaving West Noble with a 58-56 lead with 17 seconds remaining. Peterson responded by making two free throws, but again, Teel scored as well with five seconds left, once again making it just a two-point game. Down by two, Valley sent Peterson to the line again, but this time she missed the first of a bonus situation. Teel's desperation three-point attempt from beyond half court, however, was off the mark as the horn sounded. Peterson finished the game with 25 points, eight steals and seven rebounds, while the 6-foot-2 Richardson, who'll be playing at Ball State University next year, had 13 points, six rebounds and two blocked shots. “They have a nice one-two punch,” Kindig said. “You can stop one of them, but it's pretty hard to stop both of them.” Outrebounding West Noble 51-32, Valley was led on the boards by junior Kelsey Ball, who had 16 of them to go with eight points, while Hoffman netted 20 points and Teel finished with 10 points and 11 rebounds. “I really look for these girls to improve over the summer,” Kindig said of his returnees. “I really like what we have coming back. I really do. I think we should be a solid team next year.” Gone from the team will be Connor Fraser, Courtney Newsome and Danielle Bussard, who had to leave the sectional game with a knee injury with 23 seconds remaining in the first quarter. “We were already short one player with (sophomore) Taylor Trippiedi out for the year with an injury,” Kindig said. “I thought Karis Tucker did a nice job as a freshman. She came in and did a reasonable job. She didn't turn the ball over, but I think we may have let down a little bit, which happens when you have an injury like that. She'd been playing well for us the last two or three games of the year. It would have helped to have the senior leadership out there, but you have to play with what you have.”
