Lady Lions hold off late charge by Central Noble
BREMEN — Sectionals for high school girls basketball are still a month out, but an early glimpse into what playoff hoops will look like took place Tuesday night when two of the better Class 2A teams in northern Indiana met up at the Lions’ Den.
Behind the one-two scoring punch of Katie Moyer and Ellia Foster and key defensive stretches, Bremen was able to hold off a furious Central Noble fourth-quarter rally to win, 50-46.
“We’ve had a lot of games with Central Noble that didn’t end the way we wanted them to,” said Alex Robinson, who was 1-6 against the Lady Cougars in his career as the head coach of Bremen coming into Tuesday’s game. “One of the things we’re really focusing on this year is defending our home court. This win puts us 7-0 at home. Seeing the girls fight through adversity and take pride in that is awesome.”
After a tight first half, the Lady Lions used an 11-0 spurt early in the third quarter, then added a 12-0 flurry over the last couple of minutes of that period and the start of the fourth to take what looked like a commanding 42-26 lead. Moyer had all 21 of her points - mostly from inside the paint - by that time and Foster a dozen (two 3s) of her 18.
“We want to get everybody looks (offensively) through playing as a team and a lot of times that ends up being Ellia taking it to the basket or Katie inside,” added Robinson. “We are looking for the assisted, unselfish plays and we got some of those. We wanted to stay aggressive.
We have a tendency to stay on the perimeter too much. We knew we had a size advantage so we wanted to feed the post, get it inside. A lot of that is Foster and Moyer and being relentless.”
But just when it looked like the home team would cruise to the victory, Central Noble’s Madi Vice almost single-handedly pulled out the stunning comeback. The junior point guard scored the first 15 points of the final quarter for the Lady Cougars and when somebody else finally made a shot - a Meghan Kiebel 3 at the 2:10 mark - the score was tied at 44-all. Foster nailed four straight foul shots around a CN turnover though, for a little cushion and only 47 seconds left. Then after Vice scored her 17th point of the quarter, Kila Foster’s layup to break the Lady Cougars’ full-court press pushed the lead back to four with just 15 ticks remaining and CN turned the ball over on their next possession to seal it.
“They really ramped up the aggression on defense pretty early in the fourth quarter. They had to,” said Robinson. “They had to have a sense of urgency down 16. We made just enough shots after that. It wasn’t our intention to get back on our heels (with the big lead). Number 10 (Vice), she’s a great player, and just went unconscious there and was able to penetrate into the zone defense and make some plays. The big thing is our girls got through it and fought through it and finished the game off.”
Vice, who averages 16 ppg, finished with 28, including a perfect 7-for-7 mark on free throws and a trio of 3s. Kiebel hit her average with 12. Only three other players scored for CN, each with just two points. Kila Foster chipped in eight (two 3s) for Bremen.
Bremen hosts Class 3A No. 1 South Bend Washington on Friday.
• BREMEN 50, CENTRAL NOBLE 46
At Bremen
CENTRAL NOBLE: Madi Vice 9 7-7 28, Kyleigh Egolf 0 0-0 0, Meghan Kiebel 5 0-2 12, Avery Deter 0 0-0 0, Kennedy Vice 1 0-0 2, Courtney Gray 0 0-0 0, Ashleigh Gray 1 0-0 2, Kierra Bolen 0 0-0 0, Abigail Hile 1 0-0 2. TOTALS: 17 7-9 46.
BREMEN: Kila Foster 3 0-0 8, Emma Graverson 0 0-1 0, Katie Moyer 8 4-11 21, Ellia Foster 5 6-9 18, Madison Youngman 0 0-0 0, Mikayla Shively 0 1-3 1, Jaiden Monhaut 1 0-0 2. TOTALS: 17 11-24 50.
Score by quarters
C. Noble 7 20 26 46 Bremen 8 19 35 50 3-pointers: Bremen 5 (E. Foster 2, K. Foster 2, Moyer), Central Noble 5 (M. Vice 3, Kiebel 2). Fouls (fouled out): Bremen 15 (Shively), Central Noble 23 (Kiebel) Records: Bremen 10-5, Central Noble 10-5
JV score: Central Noble 45, Bremen 12