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Douglass adds 24 in win; Barcus scores 22 for Lady Dragons in loss
BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS
Sports Editor, RTC
Olivia Thomas Morgyn Barcus
FULTON — Olivia Thomas called them the most important free throws of her life.
The senior forward for the Caston girls basketball team made the tying and go-ahead free throws with 1:19 left in overtime and also made two crucial defensive plays and pulled down the game’s final rebound in the final half-minute as the Lady Comets beat visiting Argos 61-59 Tuesday.
Madi Douglass played through Argos’ box-in-one defense and scored a game-high 24 for Caston, Grace Colvin added a career-high 15 one game after being shut out against Winamac, and Allison Craig had nine, including the game-tying layup off a Gigi Berry post feed with two seconds left in regulation.
Morgyn Barcus hit four 3-pointers and scored 22 points for Argos. Alydiah Leed added 16, and Ellie Bollenbacher had 13 points and 13 rebounds before fouling out with 50.4 seconds left in regulation.
Both teams are 2-4 overall and 1-1 in the Hoosier North.
Thomas, a senior who had attempted only eight free throws in her career prior to Tuesday, stole Lexi Gibson’s bounce pass attempt into the lane with Caston trailing 58-57 in overtime. Gibson immediately was called for a reach-in foul.
Thomas’ first free throw swished through the net cleanly. Her second bounced on the front of the rim, landed on the rim again and crawled over.
Caston led 59-58.
Thomas later joked that coach Josh Douglass might have provided some spiritual help on the second free throw.
“I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, these have to be the biggest free throws of my life,’” Thomas said. “I was so stressed out, and that last one, I have no idea how it went in. It just sat there for like 15 seconds. Josh was like an angel to tip that thing in.”
The steal was the first of four big plays that involved Thomas in the overtime:
With 37.2 seconds left and Caston leading 60-58, Thomas got a hand on Barcus’ drive into the lane, which led to a jump ball. Caston received the ball on alternating possession.
With 24 seconds left and Caston leading 61-58, Thomas went out to the right sideline and partially blocked Leed’s 3-point attempt. Craig rebounded under the basket.
“I played in the post some last year but a lot more this year,” Thomas said. “It’s a much bigger role for me.”
After Caston’s ensuing possession ended with Camila Hernandez-Rios missing a banker in the lane, Barcus rebounded and drove down the floor. Trailing by three, she drove inside the 3-point arc and was fouled by Thomas. She made her first free throw but intentionally missed the second, but Thomas grabbed the rebound and passed out to Douglass as time expired.
“A total team effort tonight,” coach Douglass said. “Olivia really stepped up there in overtime and hit two big free throws, rebound, jump ball. I mean, I’m proud of all the girls though. All of them that played did a lot of things good tonight and a lot of things we’ve got to keep working on.”
Argos trailed 22-5 at one point in the second quarter, and they still trailed 42-31 on a Douglass 15-footer with 7:35 left.
The rally started with a Barcus putback off the glass from the middle of the lane. Then Barcus drilled a 3. A Bollenbacher 3-point play off a putback cut the lead to three with 5:00 left.
A Bollenbacher steal led to a delayed break, and Barcus eventually found Leed for a game-tying 3 with 4:01 left.
It was 42-42.
Douglass hit two free throws, but Barcus tossed in a triple off an inbounds play, and Argos had their first lead at 45-44 with 3:24 left.
Douglass worked her way around a double staggered screen and knocked in a 13-foot banker while Bollenbacher was called for a blocking foul. She completed the 3-point play to give Caston a 47-45 lead.
But Argos responded again. Bollenbacher split a pair of free throws, and Gibson hit a pullup jumper off an inbounds play to put the Lady Dragons ahead 48-47.
A Gibson free throw with 1:35 left extended the lead to two. Douglass split a pair on the foul that disqualified Bollenbacher.
“When she went out there in the overtime, we had to come in with another sophomore undersized post that just doesn’t have the experience yet, and you’ve got to give coach Douglass some credit,” Argos coach Brian Jennings said when asked about the impact of Bollenbacher fouling out. “He went to their post player and got an offensive rebound, and the next couple times down, he was feeding it to her. … Our players did what they could while they were out there.”
Barcus then made one of two from the line with 41.3 seconds left to make it 50-48.
Caston called timeout. Colvin missed a 3 but ran down her offensive rebound. Caston called another timeout with 19.9 seconds left.
After Barcus knocked the ball out of Gigi Berry’s hands out of bounds, Caston reset on an inbounds from the left sideline.
Douglass weaved behind Colvin and found Berry in the corner. One freshman found another as Berry fed Craig open underneath the basket for the game-tying layup.
In overtime, Leed put back her own miss, but Craig answered with another bucket in the post.
Leed hit a 3, but Colvin answered with three free throws with 2:30 left to make it 55-55, benefitting from a lane violation after initially missing the third free throw attempt.
But two Barcus free throws and two misses from Craig had Argos up 57-55 and with the ball. Gibson made one of two free throws to make it 58-55.
A Colvin left baseline pullup after Craig rebounded her own miss and kicked back out cut the lead to one.
That’s when Thomas made her free throws. Haley Shafer then missed two free throws for Argos.
The Lady Dragons committed 14 turnovers in the first half but just six after halftime. Caston’s base defense is a 1-2-2 zone.
“I don’t think we solved it,” Jennings said. “We just changed up. We tried something new tonight. We went with our smaller guards out front. We were hoping Caston would pack in a little bit of a zone, maybe extend it out a little bit. But we were hoping to get past that first level of pressure and get it more to our seniors Leed and Barcus on the wings. Well, we had some trouble doing that just because it was probably our first time trying it. So we’ll go back to it.
“But second half, we went back to our stronger guards, and we just did a nice job of feeding the post, got some things in there to Ellie going, and then she got some good kickouts. We moved the ball a little bit better in that second half.”
Caston 61, Argos 59 (OT)
ARGOS (59) (2-4, 1-1)
Alydiah Leed 7 0-0 16, Leah Pizzuto 0 0-0 0, Morgyn Barcus 7 4-6 22, Lexi Gibson 3 2-4 8, Ellie Bollenbacher 3 7-11 13, Kinzlee Kelly 0 0-0 0, Haley Shafer 0 0-2 0
TEAM: 20 13-23 59
CASTON (61) (2-4, 1-1)
Grace Colvin 5 3-3 15, Madi Douglass 6 12-15 24, Gigi Berry 1 0-0 2, Olivia Thomas 1 2-2 4, Allison Craig 4 0-2 9, Adyson Steininger 2 0-0 4, Camila Hernandez-Rios 0 0-0 0, Kylee Logan 1 0-0 3, Kaitie Hutsell 0 0-0 0
TEAM: 20 17-22 61
Three-point field goals:
Argos 6 (Barcus 4, Leed 2),
Caston 4 (Colvin 2, Craig, Logan)
Total fouls: Argos 16, Caston 17
Fouled out: Bollenbacher (ARG), :50.4, fourth
Turnovers: Argos 20, Caston 16
Score by quarters
Argos 5 8 17 20 9 – 59
Caston 14 8 18 10 11 – 61
