By Justin Sokeland
WBIW.com
INDIANAPOLIS – Don’t be fooled by the long lashes and painted nails. Underneath the acrylic exterior, Chloe Spreen is a tiger. Prowling, scowling, scoring, roaring. A nightmare to guard. And with her claws doing the damage, Bedford North Lawrence fulfilled a dream.
For the seventh time in program history, the Stars scratched their way to a semistate championship. That means another banner will soon fly in the rafters of BNL Fieldhouse. All that remains now is the wording. And the word on Saturday night was Spreen.
BNL’s sensational junior star was ferocious, exploding for 26 points as the No.7 Stars conquered Lawrence North 47-40 to win the Class 4A southern semistate crown. BNL (26-3) will now face No.3 Fishers (26-2) in the grand finale at Gainbridge Fieldhouse on Feb. 25.
Spreen was in attack mode, inflicting punishment in the paint, especially during a tense second half as BNL protected a lead. She was responsible for 19 of BNL’s 26 second-half points, carrying the Stars to their dream destination in the state championship. BNL’s defense also did heavy lifting, allowing only six field goals during the first three quarters. Then when the Wildcats (19-10) finally started to bite and battle back, Spreen was the closer with six free throws and a layup off her only miss at the line during the frenetic last six minutes.
Then came the celebration, with roars of joy from coach Jeff Allen as he lifted that semistate trophy aloft, with tears from Karsyn Norman as she realized her fantasy of a state title is one game from reality, with hugs of ecstasy from everyone involved.
“It’s a dream come true when you can do it,” Allen said. “I’m so happy for them.
“It’s just a great group of kids. They’ve done everything I’ve asked and worked so hard. I’m so happy they’ve been rewarded with this. It means the world to us, to the team and program, the community. We’re a big basketball town. To have this success, it’s hard to put into words. It’s monumental.”
The reward came after some risk. BNL’s defense is built on pressure, on hawking dribblers and bothering shooters, on forcing the issue. But this script was flipped 180 degrees. The Stars packed into the lane, dared the Wildcats to launch from the perimeter rather than allow an interior assault. As Lawrence North struggled, BNL’s lead grew – not by leaps and bounds, but by inches and insistence.
The start was electric, with Norman and Spreen busting 3-pointers, with Mallory Pride dropping a 16-footer, with Spreen scoring from the baseline for a 16-9 lead. Madisyn Bailey opened the second quarter with a 3-point play, and BNL was on the verge of a runaway triumph.
Even when the Stars cooled off, the lead kept growing. Norman drilled a corner bomb to start the second half, Spreen posted in the lane, and it was 27-15. Center Grove didn’t score in the second half until the 2:53 mark, and Spreen opened the fourth quarter with another drive for a 35-23 lead.
Lawrence North finally found a spark, a rhythm. Monica Williams dashed to a 3-point play, Kamara Mills swished a bomb, Williams twisted down the lane for a left-handed bucket, Mya Hurt rebounded her own miss for a basket, and Hurt added a trey from the key that brought the Wildcats within 41-38 with 3:45 left.
Momentum shifted during the next sequence. Lawrence North got a steal on its press but missed a hurried layup. Spreen grabbed that rebound and was fouled. She missed the one-and-one, but Pride snagged the board and fed Spreen for a layup that eased the angst.
“They’re a great team,” Allen said of the LN rally. “it would have helped if we had made some free throws (BNL missed seven in the fourth quarter). That’s part of the game. It’s a pressure situation, and they missed some tough ones. But they hung in there on the defensive end. We got stops when we had to.”
Spreen was just too good. When the Wildcats shifted a smaller defender to shadow her, she went to work in the post. Welcome to her Jungle, she’s got fun and games down there.
“I like the post,” Spreen said. “We were going to win this, no matter what. It wasn’t taking over, just doing what needed to be done. It wasn’t just me. There were some points in the game I had to get buckets for us.”
“She has that ability to do that all the time,” Allen said. “We have a lot of weapons, today she had the hot hand in the second half. We kept going back to run stuff for her, and it really paid off. She’s a tremendous talent.”
“She just scores in different capacities,” Lawrence North coach Stephen Thomas said. “She can score off the dribble, off the catch and shoot, off the block. She did a phenomenal job.”
Norman finished with 8 points and Bailey totaled 7.
Williams had 13 points for the Wildcats, who shot a dismal 29.5 percent. Lawrence North always seemed to be just a shot or two from making BNL squirm.
“I lost my voice screaming ‘We’re a couple of possessions away,’” Thomas said. “Yeah, if a few shots fall down, it’s a different ballgame. But that’s why it’s a game. You play it, leave it all out there. That’s what we did.”
“We really wanted to take away driving lanes,” said Allen, who even had BNL back into a zone on a few trips. “We wanted to focus on being inside the 3 line, help each other and defend the drive. We did a pretty good job of that.”
What’s next? One last test. Fishers topped Lake Central 41-24 in the northern semistate final. BNL won its first semistate since 2014.
“We really felt we had the potential,” Allen said. “You have to have some luck along the way. But we had the opportunity.”
“It means so much,” Spreen said. “People don’t understand how hard we worked. Coach Allen pushes us, and it’s such a great team to be with. We all have the mentality that we knew what we were working for this year. It’s so good to get this done.”
BEDFORD NL STARS (47)
3s FGs FTs R F Pts
2 Chloe Spreen, f 1-2 8-17 9-11 5 2 26
22 Mallory Pride, f 0-1 2-8 1-2 7 1 5
24 Madisyn Bailey, g 0-0 2-3 3-5 1 3 7
20 Emma Brown, g 0-2 0-2 1-2 3 1 1
21 Karsyn Norman, g 2-6 3-12 0-2 7 3 8
50 Emma Crane 0-0 0-1 0-0 1 1 0
12 Tori Nikirk 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0
Totals 3-11 15-42 14-22 30 11 47
LAWRENCE NORTH WILDCATS (40)
3s FGs FTs R F Pts
4 Kya Hurt, f 1-1 2-10 2-2 4 5 7
33 Jamaya Thomas, c 0-0 0-1 0-0 6 0 0
13 Monica Williams, g 2-7 4-14 3-3 6 4 13
11 Kamara Mills, g 2-8 2-10 0-0 1 4 6
21 Laniya Early, g 2-5 2-6 2-2 7 2 8
22 Victoria Guyse 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0
31 Natalia Franklin 0-0 1-1 0-0 1 2 2
24 Ellysa Morris 0-0 2-2 0-0 3 2 4
10 KaNyriah Ridley 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0
Totals 7-20 13-44 7-7 30 19 40
Bedford NL 14 7 12 14 – 47
Lawrence North 9 6 8 17 – 40
Turnovers – BNL 8, Lawrence North 16
Field goal percentage – BNL 15-42 (.357); Lawrence North 13-44 (.295)
Free throw percentage – BNL 14-22 (.636); Lawrence North 7-7 (1.000)
ALL SEMISTATE TEAM
Chloe Spreen, BNL
Mallory Pride, BNL
Karsyn Norman, BNL
Cristen Carter, Ben Davis
Monica Williams, Lawrence North
Taylor Guess, Ben Davis
Audrey Annee, Center Grove
Aubrie Booker, Center Grove
