The first Montgomery County matchup of the winter sports season (no Chase Pts on the line) will be on Thursday when the North Montgomery Chargers and Crawfordsville Athenian girls basketball teams open up play in the 17th annual Girls Sugar Creek Classic. The Chargers will be this years hosts and the schedule will be slightly different than years past as Southmont football prepares for a trip to the semi-state. The two-night Classic will be Thursday and Friday and the Athenians and the Chargers will play in game two on Thursday shortly after the conclusion of game one between Southmont and Western Boone.
North Montgomery comes in with a 3-2 record and riding a three game winning streak with all three wins coming on the road. North has defeated Frontier (56-39), Attica (31-24), and Frankfort (33-31). Crawfordsville comes under first year coach Joe Ferguson still in search of its first win at 0-4 .
The focus for the Chargers and Ryan Nuppnau will look to be continuing the momentum they’ve built over the last few games and take advantage of playing on their home court.
“Last week we went Tuesday-Thursday-Friday also, but it’s a little more high stake with county opponents and the Sugar Creek Classic. We’re ready to go. We’ve looked at the teams and we know what we need to do. We’re probably going to see a lot of zone action anyway against us. That’s kind of been our achilles heel offensively. We’ll watch film to try and make some tweaks. It’s going to be on our home court so we’re excited about that.”
The Athenians and Ferguson would want nothing more than their first win of the season to come against their county rival. Ferguson knows his girls will have to keep their composure in check with it being a county rivalry.
“I think the first key is to just play within ourselves for this game,” he said. “There will be a lot of emotions going on throughout the game. A lot of the girls said at the start of the season that beating North/South was their number one goal. I just hope they are able to control themselves and not play out of control because this is a rival.”
North is led by junior Piper Ramey who has scored in double figures in all four of her games this season including a 29 point performance vs Frontier. Freshman Caelyn Carpenter and Mady Holt have been a good addition to this young Charger team with Carpenter playing good defense and Holt being able to handle the ball.
Crawfordsville’s top scorer in senior Taylor Abston suffered a knee injury and it’s not certain if Abston will be able to play. Cville will lean on players Litzy Huesca, Madi and Olivia Hedrick, Addie Hodges and Molly Pierce for scoring if Abston is unavailable.
“We have to look to play solid defense regardless of who is out there for them,” Nuppnau said of one of the keys to victory. It’s a matter of us doing the little things. We hurt ourselves too much. If we can take care of the ball, get a good shot and rebound, we’ll be just fine.”
Ferguson added for his team they’ll get a chance to see two Sagamore Conference teams and despite win or loss, there will be takeaways that his team can use to get better.
“Obviously we want to win anytime we go out and play,” he said. “But the Classic gives us a chance to see how we match up against all the schools before we play them in the regular season. If we lose it allows us an opportunity to make adjustments so that we are better the next time we play. If we win it gives us confidence that we can do it again when we play them the second time around.”
The winner between Crawfordsville and North Montgomery will play the winner of Southmont and Western Boone on Friday for the championship. The two losers of Thursday’s games will play in the consolation game which will begin at 6 pm on Friday.
Cash will not be accepted for ticket purchases at North Montgomery. Tickets may be purchases on-line at gofan.co/app/school/IN1689 or at the gate with a credit card. Regular season passes are not valid for the two-day event.
