Southmont cruised to a third-straight Montgomery county title in girls basketball on Saturday with a 57-27 win over Crawfordsville.
The Mounties doubled up the Athenians with a 28-14 halftime lead behind a 13-2 run in the second quarter.
“It feels good,” Southmont coach Dan Burkman said. “They were looking forward to this game. To win it three years in a row is a good trend.”
Ella Barry helped spark the Mounties by making four of her first five shots. The freshman led all scorers with 23 to help Southmont move to 8-10 on the season and give them their third win in a row.
Crawfordsville coach Joe Ferguson felt like the Athenians did a lot of things right in the first half, but 21 turnovers proved to be too costly.
“We did a lot of really good things, but when you turn the ball over as much as we did and made some careless mistakes, it’s hard to compete,” the second-year coach said. “I felt like defensively we made them work for every shot that they got.”
Even with a double-digit lead at halftime, Burkman knew his Mounties were capable of playing better in the third quarter.
“The first half was fine, I just didn’t feel good about it. I thought we were sloppy on offense and missed a lot of open shots,” he said.
The Mounties rolled the dice with a defensive change in the second half, and it paid off. Southmont scored 22-straight to close the quarter and led 50-16 heading to the fourth.
“That third quarter was big for us,” Burkman said. “We changed some things up at halftime. They were pretty prepared for everything we were doing, so we came out in a one-three-one in the second half and kind of stifled them a little bit.”
Emily Link was also a double-figure scorer for the Mounties with 10, while Molly Williams added seven.
Olivia Jett led the Athenians off the bench with a career-high 10 points.
“Ever since around Christmas, I told her that she’s been practicing really well, and ‘if you continue to work hard and step up, there’s going to be a spot for you,” Ferguson said of the sophomore. “Tonight was a great opportunity to put her out there, and the great thing about her is she’s so young that sometimes she doesn’t know how big the situation is and she just goes out there and plays.”
Celeste Moore, one of three seniors honored after the game, scored seven including a pair of 3-pointers in the fourth quarter. Crawfordsville also honored Litzy Huesca, and Reagan Cox, who got the honorary start after suffering a season-ending knee injury before Christmas.
“I couldn’t ask for three better girls to lead the program,” Ferguson said.
