By RYAN WALKER
FULTON — In a hard fought battle, Norwell held off Benton Central to capture the Class 3A 13 girls’ basketball championship Saturday at Caston High School.
Saturday afternoon’s 58-44 victory over the Bison (25-4) captured the Knights’ (21-4) growth as a unit in their depth, toughness and strength of playing together.
The next trip will be to Huntington North High School, which is hosting the 3A North Regional side of the Semi-State tournament. Norwell drew Hamilton Heights, the top two teams remaining in the field according to the Indiana Coaches of Girls Sports Association (ICGSA) and Sagarin Ratings. The game is set to tipoff at 10 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 17. Sagarin has Norwell as the best team in 3A, the ICGSA has Hamilton Height as the top 3A team.
The Knights played without the usual firepower of Kennedy Fuelling and Makenzie Fuess, who averaged 38 points per game put together for the season. On Saturday, the two had 26 points between them, but entered the fourth quarter with only 11 points total, including a nearly scoreless drought in the second and third periods.
Unlike last year’s regional against Hamilton Heights, the Knights faced adversity through those shooting woes. In fact, the 39 percent shooting from the floor in last year’s game was actually 9 percent better than what the Knights did Saturday against Benton Central. But head coach Eric Thornton challenged this group, with all players returning from last year, to find ways to close out postseason matches like the one Saturday.
“I’m really proud of how resilient our kids were,” Thornton said in a swarm of Norwell fans near center court. “Throughout that whole game, we played through some mistakes and some fatigue, but with Benton Central being as good as they are, our kids just kept responding. That’s what I’m most proud about. We knew we needed to be a tougher team, and I thought today we showed that for four quarters. We just kept responding.”
His Knights only lost the lead once at 5-4 in the first quarter. The rest of the game, however, did not come easy.
Fuess scored her six points on back-to-back threes in the middle of the quarter, which produced a 10-0 swing — though that was met by Rachel Tolen knocking down 10 of the next 15 points in the game. That left the Bison trailing the Knights by just a single point.
Then the pendulum swung back to Norwell with another 10-0 run, highlighted by baskets from Dekota Hubble and Vanessa Rosswurm. The sudden six-point burst by the Knights from the 5:55 mark to the 5:03 mark in the second quarter gave Bison head coach David Baxter another reason to call timeout. That again sparked the Bison to crawl back and create some offense.
At halftime, the Knights held a tight grip on a 27-23 lead.
In the second half, it was the Hubble and Rosswurm show on the scoresheet.
The pair put up the next eight points: Hubble got a putback for two, and Rosswurm splashed two threes to stretch the Knights’ lead to 10 points.
Rosswurm’s fourth triple came three minutes later to halt the Bison from their third scoring run in the game. Hubble added one of two free throws.
Hubble and Rosswurm were the only Knight players to score in the third quarter. That left Fuelling and Fuess to pick up the slack in the fourth.
Fuess hit nothing but nylon on the Knights’ first shot in the final stanza for a 13-point spread. From that point on the Knights’ lead never dropped below 12.
Fuelling hit her first and second shots from long-range in the final quarter. The first put out the last fire Benton Central had.
Fuelling’s second shot at the 2:55 mark gave her a share of the all-time scoring list, tying her with Jessica Rupright at 1,591. Fuelling’s final shot — and the last shot taken by either team in the game — came with 9.8 seconds left, giving her the girls’ all-time scoring record at Norwell at 1,593 points.
“It means so much,” Fuelling said about the record. “I couldn’t have done it without my teammates. They’re always finding me in those types of situations and how they get me open. A lot of (the credit) goes to them.”
Fuelling and Fuess’ 13 points in the fourth quarter certainly sealed the deal, but the rest of the five players that checked in did a lot of the heavy lifting.
When Hubble was in the game, she gave the Knights the extra opportunities to score. On top of 13 points, Hubble grabbed eight offensive rebounds and in turn, cashed in for points the majority of the time. Her teammate, Haley Green, was productive when Hubble needed a break, Green pulled down five rebounds.
The two also shut down who Thornton believes is the Bison’s best player, Sarah Gick, a forward who was kept quiet with only six points.
The leading scorer for Norwell, and the only non-senior to play, was Rosswurm, who added 17 points to the mix on four for six shooting from deep. She also snagged five rebounds.
“Vanessa out at the top, her length, her rebounds — we get so many second chances, and we limited (Benton Central’s) second chances,” Thornton said. “Dekota’s walling up on Gick, she got six (points) maybe tonight, their best player. We thought their guards might panic a little bit if we could take Gick away, and I thought we had an effect on it, and those two players are a huge part of it. But again, that’s the type of team we have, where we have that depth with kids like Dekota and Vanessa.”
Thornton also mentioned a play where the Bison ran a triangle set, but Annabelle Johnson knifed through the lane for her only make of the game. That switched them out of their set and forced them to honor her and the rest of the team. She also finished with seven assists.
The Knights will get their chance at revenge right away in the Semi-State first round. The Hamilton Heights Huskies (24-2) defeated Norwell last year in the regional championship 44-40 at Bellmont. The Knights play in the first game at 10 a.m. on Bob Straight Court.
“I’m just so glad I got to do it with this group of girls,” Fuelling said. “I feel like we play so well together. We can go just as far as we want to go.”
ryan@news-banner.com
NORWELL 58, BENTON CENTRAL 44
At Caston High School
BENTON CENTRAL (25-4): Rachel Tolen 8-15 2-5 21, Sarah Gick 2-6 2-4 6, Keara Lipscomb-Allen 2-4 1-4 5, Mariyah Rich 2-4 1-2 5, Sienna Foster 2-3 0-0 5, Avery Hardebeck 1-5 0-0 2, Ellie Wetli 0-1 0-0 0, Chauncey Keller 0-1 0-2 0, Madison Minniear 0-0 0-0 0. TOTALS: 17-39 6-17 44.
NORWELL (21-4): Vanessa Rosswurm 6-16 1-4 17, Kennedy Fuelling 6-25 1-2 15, Dekota Hubble 5-8 3-7 13, Makenzie Fuess 3-13 2-2 11, Annabelle Johnson 1-4 0-0 2, Haley Green 0-1 0-0 0, Lilly Norris 0-1 0-0 0. TOTALS: 21-68 7-15 58.
Benton Central 16 7 10 11 — 44
Norwell 17 10 16 15 — 58
Three-Point Field Goals: Benton Central 4-9 (Tolen 3-5, Foster 1-1, Wetli 0-1, Rich 0-1 Hardebeck 0-1), Norwell 9-26 (Rosswurm 4-6, Fuess 3-7, Fuelling 2-10, Johnson 0-1). Rebounds: Benton Central 28 (Gick 7, Hardebeck 7, Tolen 3, Lipscomb-Allen 2, Rich 1), Norwell 31 (Hubble 9, Geen 5, Johnson 5, Rosswurm 5, Fuess 4). Turnovers: Benton Central 30, Norwell 19. Fouls: Benton Central 15, Norwell 13. Fouled Out: None. Technicals: None.
