High school basketball: Vikings state-bound

WARSAW – Good thing Meredith Brouyette picked her spots to listen to her coach.

Selective hearing played a role in Tippecanoe Valley’s girls basketball team earning a spot in next Saturday’s Class 3-A state championship game.

Up by seven early in the fourth quarter, Vikings coach Chris Kindig implored his sharpshooter Brouyette to pull the ball out, run some clock, and look for a high percentage shot.

Brouyette had a different plan.

“I had a really good look, so I took it,” the sophomore forward said of her 3-pointer. “Shooting the 3-pointer, that’s my job.”

Brouyette actually had two 3-pointers – and also hit three free throws after being fouled on a bomb – in a 16-4 run that paved the way for Tippecanoe Valley (25-2) to eliminate Rochester (23-5), 60-45, in front of 4,500 fans at the Warsaw Semistate Saturday.

The victory sends the Vikings into the 6 p.m. state championship game against Princeton (29-1) next Saturday at Bankers Life Fieldhouse.

“When (Rochester) cut the (Tippecanoe Valley) lead to five (with 7:20 left in the game), our focus was to be more patient on offense,” Kindig said. “We wanted to throw those extra two or three passes until something came open.”

Brouyette just happened to get open a little early in the rotation.

“(Saturday) morning, when we were shooting, my shot felt real good,” Brouyette said. “Coach came up to me and said, ‘Maybe tonight will be your night.’

“I guess I heard him yelling at me to pull it out (and reset the offense), but I figured, ‘Why not?’ If felt right.”

Then she smiled, “My bad.”

Nothing bad about that.

Brouyette, who scored 16 points, was the outside weapon that took the pressure off Tippecanoe Valley’s inside presence, 6-foot sophomore Anne Secrest, who also had 16, along with 14 rebounds.

“We needed to control Secrest,” Rochester coach Tony Stesiak said of his plan for the game. “Then, their outside shooters started hitting. We tried to take something away.”

Even with Secrest in foul trouble through most of the game, she was still a factor.

“When I got in the foul trouble, I tried to play off the player I was guarding,” Secrest said. “I just had to play smart.”

Tippecanoe Valley jumped to an 11-1 first-quarter lead and stubbornly refused to let Rochester back in the game. The Vikings pushed their advantage to 14 midway through the second quarter.

The Zebras, who got 16 points from Becky Malchow and 10 each from Keaton Stesiak and Ali Larkin, made a couple runs.

They trimmed the difference to four with 3:28 left in the third quarter, but Taylor Trippiedi, who finished with 14 points, responded with a critical 3-pointer for the Vikings. Then, two free throws by Larkin to end the third quarter and a 3-pointer by her to start the fourth, got it to five and set the stage for Brouyette’s heroics.

“We used up so much energy digging out of a hole all night that it was hard to get over the hump when we got close,” coach Stesiak said.

This was a Rochester team that knocked off No. 2-ranked South Bend St. Joseph in the sectional and No. 1-ranked Benton Central in the regional.

“We won’t let what happened tonight take away from what this team accomplished,” coach Stesiak said. “This was ‘the little team that could.’ It was a special run that people won’t forget.”

As for the Vikings, they have one more week to make memories.

TIPPECANOE VALLEY (60): Taylor Trippiedi 6 0-1 14, Karis Tucker 2 2-8 6, Meredith Brouyette 5 3-3 16, Caylie Teel 1 0-4 2, Anne Secrest 7 2-3 16, Olivia Trippiedi 0 0-0 0, Brynda Krueger 0 2-2 2, Asia O’Connor 0 0-0 0, Morgan Brazo 0 0-0 0, Hannah Dunn 1 2-2 4, Addy Miller 0 0-0 0. TOTALS 22 11-23 60.

ROCHESTER (45): Alexa Holland 2 2-2 6, Keaton Stesiak 3 4-5 10, Becky Malchow 4 8-13 16, Bailey Abbott 1 1-4 3, Ali Larkin 2 4-6 10, Grace Pfeiffer 0 0-0 0, Alexis Elliott 0 0-0 0, Morgan Ruff 0 0-0 0, Hannah O’Dell 0 0-0 0, Alexa Garrison 0 0-0 0, Kennedy Musselman 0 0-0 0, Emma Dahlquist 0 0-0 0. TOTALS 12 19-30 45.

Shooting: Tippecanoe Valley 22 of 39 (56 percent), Rochester 12 of 48 (25 percent); 3-point goals: Tippecanoe Valley 5 (T. Trippiedi 2, Brouyette 3), Rochester 2 (Larkin 2); Total fouls (fouled out): Tippecanoe Valley 21 (none), Rochester 19 (Stesiak); Rebounds: Tippecanoe Valley 37 (Secrest 14), Rochester 29 (Holland 7, Stesiak 7); Turnovers: Tippecanoe Valley 21, Rochester 10; Records: Tippecanoe Valley 25-2, Rochester 23-5.

ND recruit awaits Vikings

Future Notre Dame player Jackie Young didn’t merely step into history Saturday. She smashed down the door.

The Princeton High School junior singlehandedly outscored Bishop Chatard by five points in the fourth-ranked Tigers’ 77-38 rout of Bishop Chatard Saturday in Class 3-A girls basketball semistate action at Richmond.

In the process, Young’s 43 points pushed her past Charlestown’s Abby Conklin as the state’s top all-time, single-season scorer.

Now No. 9 Tippecanoe Valley gets to solve the 5-foot-11 guard in next Saturday’s 3-A state title game in Indianapolis, when it faces fourth-ranked Princeton (29-1).

Young was 17-of-25 from the field in pushing her season point total to 967. Former Indiana Miss Basketball Conklin had the old record of 956, set back in the 1992-93 season. Young, who came into the game averaging 31.9 points a game, added a game-high 11 rebounds.

Another Irish recruit will be in Indianapolis next Saturday playing for a state title.

Senior Ali Patberg scored 39 points to lift No. 2 Columbus North to a 69-60 Class 4-A semistate victory over No. 3 Lawrence North at Richmond on Saturday.

Patberg, a 5-11 guard who signed with the Irish in November, was 14-of-18 from the field and 9-of-10 from the free throw line. The Bull Dogs (27-1) will take on No. 4 Homestead (26-2) in the title game.