It took Jefferson County North more than 32 minutes of gameplay to finally grab the lead in the title game of the Chargers’ own tournament Saturday in Winchester and it took a couple clutch plays to help North hold off a feisty Perry-Lecompton squad for a 49-44 overtime victory.
The win was more proof of a Charger team that, as coach Steve Noll put it, has a never-say-die mentality. Meanwhile on the other side, the Kaws continued the best basketball story in the county this season in a turnaround under second-year coach Justin Mayer. Despite the loss, the Kaws sat at 8-2 after the game. The Kaw girls last won 8 games in the 2000-01 season when they finished 8-13. They have only won 7 games one time since that season.
JCN earned a trip to the title game with wins over Atchison and ACCHS in the quarterfinals and semifinals. Perry-Lecompton took down McLouth and Oskaloosa in narrow wins to qualify for the tourney title game.
The Kaws held the momentum for the vast majority of the game with the Chargers but the keys to the Charger win were a resurgence of rebounding by North after the Chargers were outrebounded, 18-13, in the first half, and 22 Kaw turnovers compared to only 12 for the Chargers. At game’s end the Chargers had 37 rebounds to Perry-Lecompton’s 38. A big shot by North senior Sara Navinskey to force overtime also helped the Chargers’ cause.
Perry-Lecompton took control from the opening tip as junior guard Abbey Bays scored off an offensive rebound and the Kaws built a 7-1 lead midway through the quarter. North got its first field goal of the game on a Navinskey jumper with 3:40 to play in the opening quarter and got the game tied at 7 with just over a minute left in the period. A free throw by Kaws junior Taylor Akagi gave the Kaws an 8-7 edge entering the second quarter.
The game was tied at three points in the second quarter until Perry-Lecompton regained control with a 7-point run to force a North timeout with 2:31 left in the half. The Kaws had the ball and a chance to extend the lead but North sophomore guard Jordan Kramer came up with two key steals that were converted into a layup and then two free throws by senior forward Mallory GrandPre to cut the lead to 3 at 19-16 Kaws with 51 seconds left in the half. Kaws senior Katherine Frye added a free throw to give Perry-Lecompton a 20-16 halftime lead.
The Chargers cut the lead to 2 early in the third quarter but the Kaws churned out another 7-point run in a 90-second stretch of game time. Sophomore guard Natasha Carver got it started with a 3-pointer, senior forward Katie Volle added two free throws and Bays hit a jumper to make it 31-22 Kaws, which would be the score entering the fourth quarter.
JCN scored the first 5 points of the final quarter to get back in the game. Kramer scored off an offensive rebound on a missed GrandPre free throw and then hit a jumper on North’s next possession to cut the lead to 31-27. Kaws senior Jessica Christman scored on a short jumper but a Kramer 3 would cut the lead to 33-31 Kaws with 5:07 to go in the game. The Kaws were up 4 and had a couple chances to stretch the lead but were unable. Another Christman jumper with 2:10 to play kept the lead at 4 and the Kaws again got multiple chances to extend the lead but could not.
The Kaws still held the 4-point lead with 1:02 to play, however. GrandPre hit 1 of 2 free throws with 44 seconds to play but, for a third consecutive time, the Kaws missed the front end of a 1-and-1 free throw set and GrandPre pulled down the rebound. Kaws senior guard Katie Hirsch got a key steal with 33 seconds left and hit 1 of 2 free throws to make it 38-34 Kaws. JCN junior Katie Noll scored off an offensive rebound and the Chargers took a timeout with 23 seconds left.
The Kaws made a key turnover on their next possession and, after another North timeout, Kramer and Navinskey executed a well-timed inbounds play with Navinskey scoring on a layup of Kramer’s inbounds pass. Kramer fouled Bays with 15 seconds left and the Perry-Lecompton junior hit both free throws to give the Kaws a 40-38 lead. From there, North had one more chance and, with time winding down, Navinskey threw up a shot from near the top of the key and it hit its mark to tie the game and force overtime.
North was still looking for its first lead of the game entering the extra stanza and got it as Kramer scored on a layup off the tip and was fouled. Hirsch hit 1 of 2 free throws on Perry-Lecompton’s next possession to cut the lead to 1 and, after a GrandPre short jumper for her first field goal of the game, Bays hit a clutch 3-pointer to tie the game at 44. North was able to take a 1-point lead on a GrandPre free throw and a traveling call on the Kaws gave the Chargers an opening. Navinskey hit 2 free throws to make the lead 3, but then missed both free throws after pulling down a defensive rebound and getting fouled. Kramer came down with a big offensive rebound on the second missed free throw but traveled, and then GrandPre made a key steal with time running under 20 seconds. Kramer missed 2 free throws with 10 seconds left but GrandPre got perhaps the biggest rebound of the game and put it back in for 2 points to secure the 49-44 North win.
North improved to 11-1 with the win as Kramer scored 17 points with 7 rebounds and 5 steals and Navinskey scored 11 points with 7 rebounds. GrandPre scored 9 points with 9 rebounds and 7 steals and Katie Noll grabbed 7 rebounds.
Perry-Lecompton fell to 8-2 and was led by 15 points and 11 rebounds from Christman and 9 points each from Bays and Volle. Bays added 6 rebounds and 3 steals while Volle grabbed 5 rebounds. Two Kaw starters fouled out late in the game to help North’s chances.
North coach Noll said he would take the win and tourney title, although he credited Perry-Lecompton for giving the Chargers all they could handle.
“They played well,” a relieved Noll said after the game. “They really gave us a heck of a game. We weren’t able to do what we wanted to do. I think Sara’s shot there at the end was maybe 10 feet, 1 inch, it was that close to the rim. The girls just kept plugging away.”
Noll credited the team’s full-court pressure with helping fuel the fourth-quarter comeback.
“We did go with a little more full court man-to-man defense, and we haven’t been able to run a lot of man defense recently,” he said. “Every time it looked like shots were there, they were in our face. We finally got to where we could move the ball and got fouled a couple times there. The girls have faced a lot of adversity at times this season and they keep plugging away. Hopefully we can build on this. We’ve got to work on shooting free throws better and pick it up on defense. We need to have offense that runs based on initiating it by good defense.”
ACCHS 44,
Oskaloosa 34 (third)
The third-place game of the JCN tourney went to ACCHS as the Tigers took control in the first quarter and fended the Bears off the rest of the game to drop Oskaloosa to 7-4.
The Bears had defeated Maranatha in the opening round before falling to Perry-Lecompton in Friday’s semifinals. ACCHS had defeated Valley Falls and then lost to JCN in the tourney semifinals.
The game was tied at 3 midway through the first quarter before ACCHS ended the period on a 12-2 run, including scoring the last 9 points of the quarter. Sophomore forward Tara Ellerman and sophomore guard Megan Vanderweide fueled the run as Ellerman scored 4 points and Vanderweide drilled two 3-pointers to help ACCHS to a 15-5 lead entering the second quarter.
Ellerman would continue to be a problem for the Bears as ACCHS spent most of the quarter holding off the Bears before extending the lead to 11 at the half. Ellerman finished the half with 11 points as a 3-point play midway through the quarter stretched the lead back to 9 and Ellerman scored the Tigers’ final 7 points of the half to make it 26-15 ACCHS.
Oskaloosa came out of the locker room firing in the second half as sophomore Haley Pfau started the scoring with a 3-pointer and would score the first 7 points of the half to cut the Tiger lead to 26-22. Ellerman notched another 3-point play to get ACCHS on the board and stymie the run. Oskaloosa wouldn’t go away, however, as junior guard Hailey Kelly scored the final 3 points of the quarter to trim the Tiger lead to 33-28 entering the fourth quarter.
The Tigers held Oskaloosa off the board in a key stretch of the final period as ACCHS went on a 6-0 run that extended the lead back to 11 points with 6:05 to play. Oskaloosa sophomore forward Rachel Schmanke got the Bears back on the board with 5:57 to play but the ACCHS lead would be too big to surmount. The Tiger bench salted away a 44-34 win.
Oskaloosa was led by 11 points from Kelly and 9 points each from Pfau and Schmanke. Pfau led the Bears with 4 rebounds. The Tigers controlled the boards with a 29-15 advantage.
ACCHS was led by Ellerman’s 18 points and 11 rebounds while Vanderweide scored 11 points.
In other tourney action, McLouth defeated Atchison, 43-26, for fifth and Valley Falls defeated Maranatha, 46-37, for seventh.
