GIRLS BB: No. 1 Tigers rock No. 3 Falcons for semistate title

LOGANSPORT — The State Finals await Northwestern's girls basketball team following its latest dominant performance.

The No. 1-ranked Tigers blitzed No. 3 Fairfield 70-43 in the Class 3A North Semistate on Saturday night in Logansport's Berry Bowl. The Tigers outscored the Falcons 39-19 over the middle two quarters to break the game open.

"It is absolutely amazing," senior guard Morgan Mercer said. "I could not be more proud of my team. We worked so hard to get here and I'm just so glad I could do it with these girls."

Northwestern, which has won its six tournament games by an average margin of 46.5 points, is heading to the State Finals for the first time.

"Surreal. I can't even believe it. It's hard to wrap my head around," senior guard Sarah Vas said. "It's hard to believe [state] will be my last game, but I'm so pumped and I think we're so ready. We're going in, we want to take it all."

The championship will pit No. 1 vs. No. 2 — Northwestern (28-1) vs. Greensburg (23-3) — next Saturday at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. Greensburg beat No. 7 Danville 61-52 in the South Semistate.

For Northwestern coach Kathie Layden, it will mark her fourth State Finals appearance. She led Tri-Central to a Class A three-peat in 2003-05.

"Every time is awesome. It doesn't get old and I've missed this," Layden said. "But this is special, this is really special, and I couldn't be happier for these girls."

Fairfield (24-3) stuck around for the opening 10 minutes. The Tigers jumped to a quick 8-2 lead, but the Falcons trailed by only seven, 19-12, at the end of the first quarter. The Tigers held a 25-16 lead early in the second quarter when it sent the Falcons to the ropes with a 12-0 run.

Taylor Boruff opened the run with a jumper and Kendall Bostic followed with a pair of baskets off nice assists from Katie Neher and Madison Layden. Following a Fairfield timeout, Vas hit a jumper and Layden scored a layup off a turnover, prompting the Falcons to call another timeout. Boruff capped the run with a pair of free throws.

Northwestern went into halftime with a 39-20 lead thanks in large part to a 17-1 edge in points off turnovers. The Tigers also had a 7-0 edge in second-chance points.

"I really felt like we needed to keep it between eight and 12 points [at halftime] to have a chance. It wasn't quite there," Fairfield coach Brodie Garber said, noting the Tigers' 17 points off turnovers as the killer for his team. "They're already good enough and then we gave them some easy opportunities. That's huge."

Northwestern outscored Fairfield 19-11 in the third quarter for a commanding 58-31 lead. Madison Layden exploded for 15 points in the quarter. She was 5 of 7 overall from the field and 2 of 3 from 3-land.

"We went into halftime and said, '[Bostic] is 6 for 6, let's get the ball inside.' And then somebody lit a fire under Madison out on the court or whatever and she got into a zone for a little while and widened the gap," Kathie Layden said.

Madison Layden finished with 28 points, six rebounds, six assists and four steals. Bostic had 18 points on 9-of-11 shooting and five rebounds. Boruff had 12 points and Vas had six points. Neher had five assists off the bench and Klair Merrell had three assists.

The Tigers shot 27 of 43 (62.8 percent) from the field.

"Going into it, I felt we needed to hold them under 50 to have a chance because I didn't foresee us scoring much more than 50," Garber said. "Sometimes you have to take your hat off and say you got beat by a better team. Our other two losses this season, I don't know if I could say that about, but [Saturday] we got beat by a better team."

Erica Zook led the Falcons with 14 points and Katie Lashley added 10.

The Falcons shot 10 of 30 (33.3 percent) from the field and committed 18 turnovers.

Garber credited the Tigers for their ability to mix defenses.

"You're constantly changing what you want to do on offense. That's huge," he said. "And they take advantage [of turnovers] — your miscues are almost automatic [points]."

Northwestern's fans had the Berry Bowl buzzing with every Tiger run.

"It was awesome having this big of a crowd," Mercer said. "Our fans usually travel with us pretty well and having a student section [Saturday], it just made us even more pumped up and we were so excited."

Now, the Tigers turn their attention to one more week of practice and one more game.

"It's going to be a great week of practice," Vas said. "It will be a long season, but I couldn't ask for a different one."