Northridge tops Penn for 4A girls basketball sectional championship
MIDDLEBURY — The Northridge girls basketball team started the sectional final Saturday night picking apart the normal stingy Penn halfcourt defense.
The cohesive, confident and unselfish Raiders, in the process, ended their sectional final by picking up another championship trophy.
No. 7 Northridge started strong and never relented in topping the Kingsmen 53-37 in the title tilt of the Class 4A Northridge Sectional.
Sectional scores: UPDATED: South Bend area IHSAA girls basketball sectional scores, pairings, tipoff times
The dominant performance, in which the hosts led from start to finish, earned the Raiders their second straight sectional title and the fourth in program history.
Northridge (24-3) advances to play Valparaiso (18-7) in the regional next Saturday. The site and tipoff time for that game was to be determined either later Saturday night or Sunday by the IHSAA. Valparaiso beat Crown Point, 41-28, Saturday night to win the Valparaiso Sectional title. Northridge did not play Valparaiso this season.
Penn, which has now lost its last four meetings against the Raiders, sees its season end at 18-7.
Junior Rielyn Goodwin led the Raiders with a game-high 16 points. Freshman Lily Scholl scored 12 points and senior Morgan Cross 10 for the champions.
Karleisha Echols, one of four Penn seniors, led the Kingsmen with 10 points. Senior Lauren Walsh added eight for Penn.
Northridge, which won 51-49 at Penn on December 19, shot 14-of-26 in the win. The Raiders bolted to an 8-1 lead to start the contest. Northridge shot 9-of-19 in the opening half to lead 25-15, making layups on its first eight baskets of the contest thanks to outstanding offensive execution and pinpoint passing in its halfcourt sets.
The Raiders led by double digits at halftime despite Cross, who along with Goodwin leads the team in scoring at 10 ppg., not playing the entire second quarter due to two fouls. Scholl came off the bench to score eight first half points to keep her team in command.
"Our kids just ran our offense to perfection to start the game tonight," said Northridge coach Doug Springer. "It was an impressive start and all the credit goes to our players for executing what we wanted to.
"That's where the unselfishness of this team comes into play. They play together as one. They are more excited to get the assist than to score themselves and that says a lot about the kids we have on this team. We had five kids coming into the sectional with 50 or more assists this season."
"All eight of the kids we played in that first half contributed. We've worked to develop our balance and our depth and tonight it showed. There was no let up. Scholl came in and played huge for us in that first half especially."
Penn got within 38-31 with 7:38 to play on a trey by Kristlynn Minor. The Raiders answered with a 9-0 run to put the game away. Penn shot just 1-13 in the fourth quarter to finish at 10-of-42 for the game. Northridge made its lone shot attempt of the final period, but calmly hit 13-of-16 free throws to ice the win.
Springer, who won his 300th game in 17 years at Northridge, saw his team go through the toughest draw possible. The Raiders beat NLC foe Warsaw, which they had lost to six straight times, in the sectional opener. They then beat Elkhart and finished it out by handling Penn.
"We said Whoa when we saw the sectional draw at my house that night," Springer related. But anything that is worthwhile is not easy and this was worthwhile and not easy with the teams we had to beat to win it. That's what makes this sectional title so much sweeter."
Penn coach Kristi Ulrich gave credit where it was due.
"Northridge did what they do and did it very well tonight," said Ulrich, who is 330-57 in 15 seasons at Penn. "They came out of the gate and were able to exploit things and capitalize on us. They were the better team tonight in every phase of the game.
"They played harder, smarter and executed better than we did. We just did not do those things consistently like we needed to. We needed to get a stop, score and get another stop and we were never able to establish that tonight.
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"Overall, we had a lot of close games this season. To win 18 games, good grief a lot of coaches would take that. I thought it was important for our younger kids on this team to get to this championship game tonight to see what it's like and we did that. We only had a couple of players play for us tonight who played two years ago in that sectional final when we won the sectional."
Penn, which was allowing just 34.8 points per game, held Concord and Goshen to just 39 total points in its first two sectional wins.
Springer's team, which began the season 18-1, has lost to Class 4A No. 4 Fort Wayne Snider, Class 4A No. 10 Homestead and Class 4A No. 16 Warsaw. Those three teams were a combined 56-14 heading into sectional finals Saturday night. Both Snider and Homestead were playing for sectional championships Saturday night.
"Our chemistry on this team is just unbelievable," said Springer, who has won all four of the sectional titles in program history and lost to Lake Central in the regional round a year ago.
"My coaching staff (Dennis Bontrager, Daniel Huizenga, Molly Bontrager, Erin Yoder) are just amazing. And I give Derek Conley (our youth basketball coordinator) a lot of credit too. He took over that when our seniors now were sixth graders. All of the coaches in our entire system just do a great job with how we want our players to be taught."
NORTHRIDGE 53, PENN 37
At Middlebury
PENN (37): Lauren Walsh 3 0-0 8, Karleisha Echols 2 6-10 10, Jessa Troy 1 2-2 5, Anna McCullough 1 0-1 2, Anna Sachire 1 0-1 2, Macy Little 1 0-0 3, Kristlynn Minor 1 0-0 3, Kate Noonan 0 2-2 2, Ava Stebbins 0 2-2 2, Elizabeth Green 0 0-0 0, Alivia Dawson 0 0-0 0. TOTALS: 10 12-18 37.
NORTHRIDGE (53): Morgan Cross 3 4-6 10, Sabrina Miller 0 1-2 1, Rielyn Goodwin 4 7-9 16, Gaby Gates 3 1-2 7, Ella Mohamed 0 2-2 2. Cam Conley 1 3-4 5, Lily Scholl 3 6-6 12, Taylor Baugh 0 0-0 0, Macey Riegsecker 0 0-0 0, Kendal Jones 0 0-0 0, Addy Frederickson 0 0-0 0, Zoe Yeater 0 0-0 0. TOTALS: 14 24-31 53.
Penn | 10 | 15 | 28 | 37
Northridge | 16 | 25 | 38 | 53
3-point goals: Penn 5 (Walsh 2, Troy, Little, Minor), Northridge 1 (Goodwin). Shooting Penn 10-42, Northridge 14-26. Rebounds: Penn 16 (Echols 4), Northridge 25 (Cross 7, Scholl 6). Turnovers: Penn 13, Northridge 15. Team fouls (fouled out): Penn 24 (Echols, McCullough), Northridge 18. Team records: Penn 18-7 (final), Northridge 24-3.
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: No. 7 Northridge downed Penn to claim its second straight sectional
