Freeman, White lead South Bend Clay, New Prairie to girls basketball sectional final

NEW CARLISLE – Morgan White would not be denied for New Prairie.

Mayliya Freeman would not be denied for South Bend Clay.

Both of their teams are playing for a girls basketball sectional title because of it.

White scored six-straight points midway through the fourth quarter to lift the Cougars, 43-29, over Jimtown in the first Class 3A, Sectional 19 semifinal Friday. Freeman followed that with a staggering 24-point, 21-rebound effort to power the Colonials past South Bend Saint Joseph in the second semifinal, 46-35.

UPDATED: South Bend area IHSAA girls basketball sectional scores, pairings, tipoff times

This sets up Clay (7-17) to face the host Cougars (19-5) in the Sectional 19 final Saturday at 7:30 p.m. ET/6:30 p.m. CT at New Prairie High School. Clay has not won a sectional since 2010 and New Prairie since 2000.

Freeman puts on career performance for Clay in win

Mayliya Freeman wasn’t planning on playing basketball this season.

The junior plays club volleyball and decided she wanted to focus on that in the winter instead of hoops.

After a few weeks, though, plans changed.

“I was coming home and was like, ‘I’m bored,’” Freeman said. “I was like, ‘I need to go do something.’”

The Colonials are glad she came back.

Saint Joseph had no answers for Freeman all night. The only thing that slowed her down was foul trouble, as she sat for nearly four minutes across the third and fourth quarters with four fouls.

From Tuesday: South Bend Clay girls basketball fights on with sectional win over Mishawaka Marian

Freeman had back-to-back buckets to put Clay ahead, 38-32, midway through the fourth. Her layup with 1:33 remaining gave the Colonials a double-digit lead for the first time since late in the second period.

Fittingly enough, Freeman grabbed her final rebound off a Saint Joe miss with three seconds remaining, the ball firmly in her grasp as time expired to send Clay to its first sectional final since 2016.

“Just a lot of focus a lot of confidence,” said Freeman on what fueled her performance. “I was very excited to play because, at the beginning of the season, I didn’t even want to play basketball. I joined the team late, so I didn’t get to play Saint Joe the first time. Last year when I played them, they were pushing me around really rough, so I had to rough them up back.”

It looked for a while in the third quarter that Saint Joseph (7-16) was going to grab the lead. It cut the deficit to one, 27-26, with 33.5 seconds to go in the third.

More Saint Joseph sports: Anthony Tirotta plays through the pain for South Bend Saint Joseph hockey

Desperately needing a score, Clay got one from sophomore Hannah Jeeninga, who made a layup off a pass from Rachel Hunt with 9.5 seconds left in the third. It was the only two points of the game for Jeeninga, but it proved to be the most critical in slowing down St. Joseph’s momentum.

“It was huge,” said Clay coach Warren Bynum of Jeeninga’s shot. “… We started to feel it slipping a way a little bit, but that bucket helped us get right back into it again.”

It wasn’t just Freeman dominating the rebounding battle, as Clay also had 13 rebounds from junior Tyrece Cunningham, six from Hunt and five from Delilah Castaneda. It helped the Colonials overcome the 23 turnovers they had, all of which came in the final three frames.

“There’s a lot of emotions running through me right now,” Bynum said. “That was great how they pulled it out. We started to falter a little bit against that press, but they kept it together and finished strong. … In the season, when we’ve had our close games, we’ve surrendered the lead. So, for (Saint Joseph) to get it close and for us to battle back and gain composure, hit some big shots and play good defense, it was great to watch.”

White, defense lift New Prairie to sectional final

The offensive production in the first half of Friday’s opener left a lot to be desired.

New Prairie led, 5-2, after the first quarter and just 12-9 at halftime. Several missed shots and turnovers by both teams didn’t help the cause, leaving the game wide open going into the second half.

Things picked up in the final two frames, with Jimtown (9-14) cutting the deficit to two, 30-28, with 3:45 remaining. After a made free throw from New Prairie’s Jolie Johns is when White took over the game, scoring her team’s next six points to extend the lead to nine. She book-ended a pair of made free throws with a tough layup, drawing a thunderous ovation from the home fans.

White finished with a game-high 15 points. She also had eight rebounds and two assists.

“Coach Aimee (Litka) … she came up to me during a free throw and was like, ‘get to the paint,’” White said. “I was like, ‘You’re right.’ We just knew that’s how we’d rack up the fouls on the floor and we knew that was something we needed to do to win.”

Regional wrestling preview: Realignment sets up showdown between Penn, Rochester

Senior Jayden Flagg made four free throws and senior Jayleigh McBride two in the final minute to ice the game away for New Prairie.

“I think what was really shown is we’re a senior-led team,” said Litka of her team’s performance. “The confidence, the experience that they have, their ability to just grind away. We weren’t hitting shots — we weren’t even hitting layups — so we knew we had to, defensively, lock in.”

The defensive effort from the Cougars was especially impressive on Jimtown senior Justyce Williams, who crossed the 1,000-point career scoring mark this season. Williams finished with five points and only one made field goal, with her other three points coming off free throws.

White credited one person for slowing down Williams.

“Maci (Ernsperger) is the key to our defense,” White said. “She is the gas. When she gets a steal, it hypes us all up. We run our defense through her, and when I think of our defense, I think of Maci.”

Boys basketball: Where did these guys come from? Concord boys stay hot in pursuit of NLC title and more

The 19th win for New Prairie officially sets a program record for victories in a single year.

“There’s a lot that this group has accomplished,” Litka said. “And there’s a lot more that they can and will accomplish. Becoming the winningest team in school history is monumental. It’s a credit to the work they’ve put in not only this year and this offseason, but for four years. It’s something when people look back and go, ‘Oh yeah, I remember that team from 2024,’ they can proudly say they were a part of that.”

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Freeman, White lead South Bend Clay, New Prairie to girls basketball sectional final