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The Warsaw girls basketball team has not found itself on the wrong side of the scoreboard very often over the last couple of years, having suffered just two regular-season losses over the past two seasons. One of those came to Homestead, the team visiting the Tiger Den on Tuesday night. The Lady Tigers were not able to get revenge this time around, falling 66-52 in a top three match up in the state.
“I think we saw a really good team make an adjustment at halftime that we weren’t able to counter yet, and “I’ll leave it at that,” Warsaw head coach Lenny Krebs said. “I’m still very proud of the way this team battled tonight. No matter if we won or lost this game I wanted us to come out of it better, and we did that.”
Warsaw was without starters Alexis Neely (illness) and Reagan Huss (shin splints) in the loss.
“Losing Reagan earlier this season, we’ve just started to figure out playing around that. Finding out Lex wasn’t going to play today, you can’t make too many adjustments on game day,” Krebs said.”But I thought the girls rolled with it and did a phenomenal job handling it.”
The Lady Spartan defense made things awfully difficult for the Lady Tiger skeleton crew in the early going, not giving the high-scoring home team an inch. Senior Joslyn Bricker seemed to be the only Warsaw player able to pick up even a little separation, using it to score the first five points of the night for her team.
On the other end, the Lady Tigers were giving it right back to their opponent. After giving up a three to senior Whitnet Ankenbruck on the first possession of the night, the home side applied the clamps and strung stop after stop together to keep things close early.
Bricker was able to get some help on the offensive end in the form of fellow senior Kyra Kiser. The forward was consistently in the right place at the right time, making the most of each opportunity she got with four early points.
An already exciting opening quarter really started to heat up in the final two minutes. Homestead caught fire from deep, hitting three triples during the stretch to tie things up at 14 all. The final bucket of the period belonged to Warsaw however, as Bricker put the finishing touches on a 12-point first with a contested layup at the horn.
The lead changed four times in the first four minutes of the second quarter. Bricker was still having a phenomenal offensive game, but the Lady Tigers were still searching for someone else to step up offensively. Outside of the four points from Kiser, Bricker had accounted for every other Warsaw point. Fellow senior Brooke Zartman was being closely guarded, and getting her the ball in the first place was getting increasingly difficult.
As halftime neared, it continued to be a back and forth affair. Both defenses were still playing incredibly well, but the offenses were really starting to shine. Senior Gabby Helsom caught fire for the Lady Spartans in the second quarter, hitting four threes in the period to put her in double figures.
Even still, the Bricker show continued. The senior ended up scoring 26 of her team’s first 30 points, with each bucket either tying things up or giving the lead back to the Lady Tigers. When the halftime buzzer sounded, Homestead held a 32-30 lead. With Neely not playing and Zartman scoreless, Warsaw was more than in this game.
The beginning of the second half was big for the Lady Spartans, as they extended the lead to seven over the first three minutes. The run was finally ended by Brooke Zartman hitting her first triple of the night, much to the delight of the large home crowd. It was the first Lady Tiger point not scored by Bricker since midway through the first quarter.
Warsaw sophomore Raegan Robinson drives to the basket during the third quarter as Homestead's Kendall McLaughlin defends...Nieter
It was also the last point scored by the home side before an uncharactaristically long drought. Homestead took full advantage of the sputtering Warsaw offense, pushing its lead even further in the latter stage of the quarter. With 10 minutes left in the game, the visitors were up by eleven.
“We just weren’t equipped to make an adjustment in the second half tonight,” Krebs said.
At the end of the third quarter, that’s where it remained. The Lady Tigers looked unsynchronized on offense and were looking for answers, a product of the absolute clinic Homestead was performing on the defensive end.
The Lady Spartans were hitting Warsaw with a dose of their own medicine in the fourth quarter, coming up with a ton of “scorebacks” of their own. Each time it seemed as if the home side was primed for a run, their opponent would go right down to the other end and get those points back. With just four minutes left in the game, the lead had been extended to 13.
After a frustrating first half, Zartman was doing her best to keep her team in the game, hitting her fourth triple of the game with just over three minutes left. However, the Lady Spartans scored on each of their next two possessions to erase the progress made and then some once again.
Time continued to tick off the clock with the home side failing to gain any ground at all. It wasn’t long until less than a minute remained in the game and Homestead was still comfortably ahead. The visitors continued to add on to their advantage at the foul line until the final whistle in what was a total-team effort by the No. 3 team in the state.
Warsaw (20-2) will travel to Tippecanoe Valley on Thursday.
“We have two games this week and two opportunities to get better,” Krebs said. “This group does not like to lose. Each time they have, it has springboarded us into playing really well for a long time.”
