By Justin Sokeland
WBIW.com
BEDFORD – After the hours of waiting to hear its fate, and all the artificial drama, Bedford North Lawrence’s first-round semistate opponent will be exactly the same team as the old two-game regional would have produced as a title clash. Just a matter of semantics and circumstance.
The Stars, 24-3 after marking off the next box on the checklist of goals, will collide with Center Grove (22-4) in the opener at Southport on Feb. 18. Lawrence North (18-9) faces a rematch with Ben Davis (18-9) in the afternoon semifinal, and the winners will return that night for the championship – and the coveted berth in the state final.
That catalog of achievement is getting shorter. Sectional title (that’s 12 in a row), check. Regional crown (that’s 14 in program history), check. Only two more steps, three more victories, for the ultimate prize. Now the objectives are more difficult to reach, the challenges greater. But as BNL coach Jeff Allen, pleased with the draw and the site announcement, replied, “Let’s go.”
So here they go, lugging two trophies and seeking others. That second one was tougher than anticipated to claim, with Evansville Central not only smacking the Stars in the cheek, but also causing a bloody lip with an early burst and a first half of keen toughness. BNL pulled away in the second, not before realizing nothing earned was going to be easy.
“I wouldn’t say nervous,” senior guard Karsyn Norman said. “I was a little upset, maybe a little anxious. But I have a lot of confidence in us. I knew we’d pull it out. We needed to pick it up on the defensive end, get more stops. That’s how we won. You get momentum, and things start falling.“
“I knew we just had to get it under control and get everything figured out,” junior Chloe Spreen said. “It was hectic. We just needed to calm down. When we were patient, we got better looks.”
If they all knew it, perhaps they could have passed on clues to the nervous among the large home throng. After missing 13 straight 3-pointers, after struggling in front of a foe that was (according to the Sagarin computer) a 30-point underdog, after Allen had to bark a few times about quick shots, BNL looked in a rush to put the Bears into permanent hibernation.
Midway through the third quarter, the Stars finally hit the ignition button, and it was treys from unusual suspects that fired the engines. Emma Brown, who had hit only three shots in the postseason, buried back-to-back jumpers from deep. Then the dagger came from senior Katie Baumgart, who defied that slow-down command and splashed the third bomb of the frame for a 43-33 lead. That also sparked BNL’s 11-2 run that ended Central’s upset bid.
“I was feeling it,” Baumgart said, failing to hide a sheepish smile. “He just told us ‘No shots off of one pass.’ One pass, and I shoot it. I was like ‘This better go in.’ And it went in.”
Only 11 minutes later, BNL was celebrating, cutting down nets, basking in the afterglow of the final appearances in BNL Fieldhouse for the five-player senior class, posing for thousands of photos. After failing agonizingly short in the last two regional finals, both against Franklin, the Stars were ready to cut loose.
“This is regional,” Spreen said. “The last two years were devastating, to work so hard for something and for it to be over. I’m getting excited to keep going on.”
“I’ve missed holding that regional trophy,” said Norman, who played a key role in the 2020 regional title. “All those losses have been heartbreakers for me, the end of a season. I wanted to get past that one more step. I want to keep going, it’s my last year. It’s cool that we won regional, but that’s not the main goal.”
Everybody had a piece of net – “Very valuable,” Baumgart said – and everyone had a piece of that victory. Mallory Pride scored 16 first-half points when BNL couldn’t find an offensive pulse. Spreen was in attack mode in the lane. Madisyn Bailey got switched to Central center Madalynn Shirley and didn’t allow her a field goal during that third-quarter answer.
“I knew we would get going eventually,” Bailey said. “We just had to keep the defense up. I just tried to keep her in front of me, make her shoot over me. It feels really good. It feels good to finally get a regional championship.“
“We were all a little shaken up,” Baumgart said. “We had a lot of pressure on us to win. We came out of it. We didn’t have the best first half, we just needed to get it together. In the second half we stepped it up.”
BNL’s next step would be the seventh semistate title in program history, the first since 2014 and the back-to-back state titles. That would mean hanging another banner in the crowded northeast corner of the Fieldhouse. That would mean two triumphs over high-level competition.
“We’re going to come out ready,” Spreen said.
“Get another win, go to state,” Baumgart said when asked what she looked forward to now. “We’ve got two more boxes to check off.”
