Rochester girls pick up pace in summer showdown vs. NM

Lady Warriors looking to replace Musall, Sailors

BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS

Sports Editor, RTC

The Rochester girls basketball team can get stops with their 2-3 zone defense, but can they turn those stops into baskets at the offensive end?

The North Miami girls basketball team is coming off a Hoosier North title and back-to-back regional titles, but how will they replace the graduated Laney Musall and Grace Sailors?

The teams met at the RHS gym Tuesday in a summer game that had decidedly less at stake than when Rochester beat North Miami in two overtimes last November.

Here is a look at each team:

Rochester

Rochester has all five starters back from a team that won 13 games last year, including sectional thrillers over Manchester and Lewis Cass that they won by a combined three points.

All five starters also are on the softball team that lost a Class 2A regional to Western Boone two weeks ago.

The trio of Aubrey Wilson, Jadyn Field and Brailyn Hunter are beginning their fourth year on the varsity. Sophomores Adalyn Gonzalez, Ali Field, Lyla Bowers, Hope Baugh all saw significant varsity minutes, and Kyleigh Little is another sophomore who led the JV in scoring last season and who is looking to make the move up.

Their defensive performance against eventual state runner-up Oak Hill stood out last year. Rochester held the Lady Golden Eagles to 32 points in a sectional final loss. Oak Hill averaged 55 points per game in their other five state tournament games last year.

Burrus is starting his fifth season as coach. The most points Rochester has averaged per game during the previous four seasons was 40.3 last year.

The hope is that Jadyn and Ali Field can grab enough rebounds to ignite the transition game while the rest of the defense can harass opposing ballhandlers into mistakes and then turn those mistakes into points.

Rochester won the first 18-minute segment 23-5 and the second segment 17-2.

“I think right now it’s nice when you have a group that’s all played together,” Rochester coach Joel Burrus said. “And you know last year, we knew that we were going to take some lumps playing the freshmen as much as we did, but you can see the chemistry of those top seven kids, and then you’re bringing Little along. There’s going to be some other girls within the JV that are going to push to maybe get a quarter here and there.

“I think right now with where we’re at, you can tell that people know the coverages in our zone. You hear the communication. And I will say this: The Field sisters are going to be a bear to handle on the boards. … If you’re trying to get an offensive rebound from them, good luck.”

Hunter scored seven points in the first segment, all off dribble drives. Burrus told Hunter that opponents will try to take the 3-point shot away from her with hard closeouts. That means her task will be to dribble past the defender flying out at her on the perimeter and hunt – no pun intended – for her own shot or drop the ball down to one of the Fields for a post-up opportunity.

Hunter showed off her long-range acumen when she hit six 3s and scored 22 points in a win over Manchester in last year’s sectional quarterfinals.

“We’ve talked with Hunter a lot about this part of her game developing,” Burrus said. “If you go back to the Manchester game in the sectional, that did a lot to her confidence because she did it on the biggest stage. And it wasn’t just 3s. She was getting into the lane. We’ve talked to her a lot about getting to the nailhead.”

Gonzalez is a sophomore who could be in line for an increase in offensive production. Her length and athleticism on top of the 2-3 combined with her weakside recognition of where the ball was led to steals and transition opportunities.

Baugh hit two 3-pointers despite wearing a mouthpiece after recent oral surgery. Ali Field showed off refined footwork, Little adds length to the forward position, and Bowers adds to the depth at guard.

“Wednesday we played three games at Fort Wayne, and I told (Gonzalez) … ‘This has to be the big leap for this group,’” Burrus explained. “That group had to take this huge leap because Wilson, Hunter and (Jadyn) Field, they leave. And again, we’re going to be in that same situation where they become the leaders of the pack as juniors. So it’s going to be a huge thing for us for them to take that leap to where now, when Wilson, Field and Hunter graduate, they’re the leaders of the group, and we need them to take over and be the best players on the team.”

Rochester also won a pair of JV segments 10-6 and 12-10. Those segments were a showcase for freshmen-to-be Ella Jenkins, Hailey Howell, Macie Widman and Morgan Fowler.

“I foresee her being the point guard of the future here,” Burrus said of Jenkins. “I really like her game. … She’s long, and she’s strong. She’s working extremely hard in the weight room. … We’ve been really impressed with her so far.”

Burrus also praised Fowler, an athletic wing.

“She’s going to be a really good player here,” Burrus said. “I see her doing a lot of really good stuff for us. She’s in the weight room working extremely hard. You look at her, and she’s got a good athletic build already.”

Perhaps making the win even more impressive is that many of the girls were at school at 7 a.m. for a full weight session that eventually moved out of the weight room and to the hill behind Barnhart Field for some grueling uphill running.

They were back at the gym at 12:30 p.m. to get ready for their 2 p.m. game.

With Oak Hill returning all five starters and Maconaquah moving into their Class 2A sectional after winning back-to-back Class 3A sectionals and other formidable opponents like Lewis Cass and Peru in their sectional, Burrus knows they need to seize every day they have together as they get ready for the start of practice Oct. 19 and, more importantly, next February’s sectional.

“We are setting the tone with what we need to do work-wise to reach our potential with this group,” Burrus said. “And I think that we’ve got a very strong nucleus that is very goal-driven right now.”

North Miami

North Miami won nine games the year before Nathan Curtis became coach. They won 16 games and a regional title in his first season in 2024-25. They won 18 games and their first conference title in 30 years last year, and they repeated that regional title.

Along the way, they avenged a 15-point regular season loss to Southwood in the sectional final, and they snapped Fountain Central’s 12-game winning streak in the regional.

The season ended with a loss to Elkhart Christian in the semistate semifinals.

With the graduation of Musall, now playing at Manchester University, the most experienced returning guards are Porscha Pickett and Laina Kling. 

“The good thing is we’ve got Porscha Pickett back,” Curtis said. “She’s played with us the last two years,” Curtis said. “She’s becoming a better point guard, and she has to. Laina Kling has done a pretty decent job for us this summer as well. … Kinley Deardorff, getting her in and making her do that quite a bit this summer too because we’ll have to lean on her some, especially if we get in some foul trouble.”

The loss of Sailors – she is at Franklin College to play volleyball and run track – means that the Lady Warriors will not be as tall. In addition, 5-10 forward Kayden Donaldson, a first-team All-RTC4 player last year, was not present as she was on a family trip.

That left a size differential against Rochester. Curtis called her “one of the better players around the area.”

“Kayden’s going to make a difference,” Curtis said. “She’s 5-10, 5-11 and can shoot the 3. She’s a presence inside and out. Defensively, she’s going to rebound and block shots for us. So having her on the floor will make our team completely different.”

Curtis will also try to develop a group of sophomores into varsity players. They include Deardorff, Savannah Rentschler, Sydney Lane, Lexie McGovern, Remy Korreckt and Freedom McHenry.

“There’s three or four of them that could play,” Curtis said. “Freedom’s had a really good summer. You know, she’s a tough kid, and she does everything I ask her to do. She plays good defense. She does need to work on her ballhandling a little bit.

“Sydney Lane is kind of a diamond in the rough. If we can get her right, she’ll be a lot of help. She’s long and athletic, and she can shoot the ball pretty well. It’s getting experience and confidence.”

Curtis was asked about the objectives for this summer.

“Just growing as a team,” Curtis said, when asked what the objectives are for this summer. “We’ve got some young players that are going to have to step up in some roles that they’re not used to. Getting them to learn the game and learning how to really play defense, learning the offense and all the different plays that we’re going to throw at them throughout the year and getting experience.

“In the summertime, it’s not about winning and losing. Most of the games we’ve played this year, I tried to get the younger kids a lot more playing time because it’s going to help them come season time. Just the experience and trying to get them to grow as players is the main goal during the summer.”