Western Boone is back in familiar territory as the Stars will once again be playing for a Sugar Creek Classic title. Western Boone took care of North Montgomery 41-21 on Friday to advance to Saturday night’s championship game behind a strong start on defense. Webo held North Montgomery without a field-goal until the four-minute mark of the second quarter Charger freshman Macee Norman scored the fourth point of the game.
After a slow start offensively in the first eight minutes Webo led 5-2 but quickly found it’s rhythm to extend their lead to double-digits and took an 18-6 lead into the locker room.
“We were happy from the get go with how our defense played,” Stars coach Hannah Kelly said. “Offensively we struggled for a bit until we decided to slow the game down and start setting something up. We tell our girls to control the pace of the game and play how we like to play.”
Western Boone found their offensive in a big way in the final eight minutes of the game as they scored 16 points to be able to put the Chargers away. Six different Stars got in the scoring column as senior Carlie Pennington led the way with 11. Lili Jones drilled three threes to end the game with nine while Ki’erra Koch scored seven. Ila Stokes added six while Katheryn Rutherford and Emmy Roys both scored four. Pennington scored eight of those 11 points in the final period.
“What’s great about this team is that all of the girls know their roles,” Kelly said. “Carlie, Katheryn, and Emmy know that they have to step up when their called on because this is their senior year. They’re fulfilling those roles quite nicely and know that they have to go out strong this year.”
North Montgomery falls to 2-4 on the season with the loss. Chargers coach Ryan Nuppnau knows his young team will go through stretches where they struggle and unfortunately Friday night was one of them. Piper Ramey scored nine to lead the Chargers while Macee Norman added seven. Maely Gaskin hit a three and both Jadelyn Phillips and Madison Banta score a point from the free-throw line.
“Offensively when you can’t make the simple plays it’s tough to do anything,” he said. “I think we played scared on offense tonight and didn’t play scared on defense, that was one area that I was really pleased with. We’re still young and trying to get girls to understand their roles and go through different situations.”
WeBo improves to 4-1 on th season as they see their winning streak increase to four games. The Stars pulled down 35 rebounds (18 offensive) in the win and forced 31 Charger turnovers. North Montgomery will play county rival Crawfordsville in tomorrow night’s consolation game beginning at 6 pm.
“We’re going to use this as a learning experience and learn to have the confidence in ourselves,” Nuppnau said. “We held Webo to 10 points in the half court, the other 31 came off offensive rebounds and turnovers. That’s awesome and quite the feat for us. We have to carry that confidence we have defensively over to the offensive end.”
The Stars on the other hand will go for what will be their 14th Sugar Creek Classic title in the 16 year history of the tournament on Saturday night when they take on Southmont.
“Southmont is a great team and there’s not much time to really plan for them with the quick turnaround,” Kelly said. “With our five seniors there’s a different energy with this Classic being their last one. We want to translate that energy out onto the court tomorrow. I know the girls will be ready to go and hopefully we’ll bring the trophy back to WeBo.”
The Stars and Mounties will get underway 20 minutes after the conclusion of the consolation game which begins at 6 pm back at Crawfordsville.
