Wawasee's Number Is Up

SYRACUSE - In the end, Wawasee's girls basketball team was not a team built for a long postseason run.

NorthWood saw to that.

Wawasee (14-7) may have the state's leading scorer in freshman Shanna Zolman, but No. 6 (3A) NorthWood (19-3) has two Division I players in seniors Amy Zercher and Natalie Will. NorthWood, which has twice as many Division I players as Wawasee, doubled the Warriors, 76-38, in Thursday's Wawasee Sectional game.

An estimated 2,400 people showed up for the sectional in what Wawasee Athletic Director Mary Hurley called the school's biggest girls basketball crowd in history.

Zercher, who will play for Ball State, scored 24 on 10-of-12 shooting. Will, who will play for Northwestern, added 20 on 10-of-13 shooting, as well as eight rebounds and six assists.

"In all reality," Wawasee coach Kem Zolman said, "they have a lot of horses. NorthWood is a seasoned team."

Seasoned is losing the ball only four times in four quarters, which is what NorthWood did.

"We were concerned with playing defense, rebounding and taking care of the ball," NorthWood coach Steve Neff said. "We didn't talk about offensive goals going into this game."

Only two teams beat Wawasee by 10 or more in the regular season. Plymouth won by 14, while NorthWood won by 37.

Now NorthWood beat Wawasee by 38 in the sectional.

Afterward, Kem Zolman seemed resigned that while NorthWood has two talented Division I players, the Panthers also simply have Wawasee's number.

"One of these days, the tide will turn," he said. "We have to get rid of the stigma of NorthWood, just like the Chicago Bulls had to get rid of the stigma of Detroit, and Detroit had to get rid of the stigma of Boston."

Zolman scored 29 of Wawasee's 38. Only one other teammate - senior Kara Price - scored more than two. She finished with five.

And Zolman earned what she scored, as Will and Kasey Chamberlin shadowed her everywhere on the court. Zolman scored her 29 on 11-of-22 shooting.

"We didn't let the other players score," Neff said. "That was the key. We told our girls, 'Don't let the other people on your team beat you. Let Shanna score.'"

While the Panthers won by 38, they did not deliver the knockout punch until the second half. They led 27-17 at halftime, taking a 10-point lead thanks to offensive rebounding. The Panthers grabbed 10 offensive boards in the first half alone for numerous second-chance shots.

Wawasee appeared on the verge of owning halftime momentum when Price hit a three-pointer to slice NorthWood's lead to 25-17 with seven seconds to go. But seven seconds was six seconds too long as Will ended the half with a last-second shot in the paint to push the lead to 10. More importantly for NorthWood, she deflated Wawasee.

Wawasee stayed in a 2-3 zone throughout the first half, challenging the Panthers to make their outside shots. The gamble paid off - until the second half.

In the first half, the Panthers had open shots, but they rolled out. In the second half, they fell in.

The scored from the perimeter. They scored by posting up inside. They scored on transition baskets. All in all, they hit 11 of 16 field goals in the third quarter and 9 of 15 in the fourth to go 20 of 31. They outscored Wawasee 49-21 in the second half.

"We felt there were places where we could sag off and not let them hurt us," Kem Zolman said. "It worked for a while."

NorthWood jumped out to a 31-18 lead in the second half, but Zolman scored the next four to make it 31-22 with 5:46 left in the third quarter.

Then NorthWood blew the game open. Angie Callander scored only 10 for NorthWood, but she hit one of the Panthers' biggest baskets of the game when she made a three-pointer with 5:24 to go in the third. Zolman had just worked to cut the lead from 13 to single digits; Callander answered Zolman by extending it to 12 at 34-22.

"NorthWood had answers," Kem Zolman said. "That comes from being a seasoned team. We would try to make a run, and they had an answer."

Callander's basket kicked off a 22-4 NorthWood run in the final 5:24 of the third quarter.

"The first half both teams were sluggish because they were trying different things," Neff said. "The third quarter, we hit our outside shots, and all of a sudden we were ahead."

And all of a sudden, before the fourth quarter even started, the game was over with NorthWood leading 53-26 after three quarters.

"NorthWood was just too much for us," Kem Zolman said. "I want to see them go all the way. It would be nice to see their seniors get that."

NorthWood meets 13-10 Angola in Saturday's 7:30 p.m. championship game. Angola advanced to the championship by beating 10-12 Lakeland 48-45.

After the game, Kem and daughter Shanna stood outside Wawasee's locker room. Shanna's eyes were red, her cheeks blotchy and puffy from tears.

Dave Krider, who covers high school basketball for USA Today, asked Zolman to sign her picture for a friend.

"He's going to put it alongside his Michael Jordan cover," he told Shanna.

As Kem watched his 15-year-old daughter satisfy an autograph request, he said, "I thought she grew up a lot over the season. Playing against two Division I players who each have four years of seasoning is a plus for her."

For Shanna, this is the first of four years. She still has three more to go, and she looks to get help as Wawasee's junior high teams are talented.

This is why Dale Brannock could smile even after this game, although the number of times Brannock has been caught not smiling number somewhere between zero and none.

"That humble pie didn't taste very good, but you know what?" Brannock, who as head coach led Wawasee to a state runnerup in the 1980s, said. "We still have a few more years."

NORTHWOOD 76

WAWASEE 38

NorthWood (19-3) 12 15 26 23 - 76

Wawasee (14-7) 6 11 9 12 - 38

NorthWood FG FT A S R Pts.

Zercher (F) 10-12 3-3 3 1 4 24

Will (G) 10-13 0-0 6 2 8 20

Callander (G) 4-11 0-0 1 1 3 10

Ky. Chamberlin (F) 4-14 1-2 1 1 4 9

Duncan (C) 3-6 2-2 0 0 9 8

Haney 1-1 1-2 0 0 0 3

Stichter 1-2 0-0 0 1 0 2

Morris 0-3 0-0 3 0 3 0

Newcomer 0-0 0-0 0 0 1 0

Zell 0-1 0-0 1 0 1 0

Ke. Chamberlin 0-2 0-0 0 0 2 0

Sandy 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0

Totals 33-65 7-9 15 6 35 76

Wawasee FG FT A S R Pts.

Zolman (G) 11-22 5-6 1 1 5 29

Price (G) 2-4 0-0 1 1 0 5

Frantz (G) 1-6 0-0 2 0 2 2

M. Lamb (C) 1-4 0-1 0 0 9 2

Hunt (F) 0-5 0-0 1 0 2 0

S. Krull 0-1 0-0 0 0 1 0

Hunziker 0-1 0-0 1 0 1 0

A. Lamb 0-0 0-0 0 0 1 0

D. Krull 0-0 0-0 0 0 1 0

Gunden 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0

Henderson 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0

Pletcher 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0

Totals 15-43 5-7 6 2 22 38

Three-point goals - NorthWood 3-8 (Callander 2-3, Zercher 1-2, Will 0-1, Ky. Chamberlin 0-1, Morris 0-1), Wawasee 3-9 (Zolman 2-5, Price 1-2, Frantz 0-2). Turnovers - NorthWood 4, Wawasee 17. Total fouls - NorthWood 15, Wawasee 10. Fouled out - None.

Officials -ÊPhilip Teusch (Fort Wayne), Michael Woolington (Logansport).