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BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS
Sports Editor, RTC
NORTH JUDSON — Brailyn Hunter hit four 3-pointers and scored a career-high 18 points, and Rylee Clevenger hit two free throws with 4.8 seconds left to preserve the Rochester girls basketball team’s 46-43 win over host North Judson Thursday in the season opener for both teams.
Ella McCarter added 10 points, Clevenger had eight, and Aubrey Wilson had six for Rochester.
Cailyn Tunis scored 17 of her game-high 19 in the second half for the Lady Jays. Kyleigh Lehiy and Shiloh DeBoard added 10 each.
Rochester never trailed and led by as many as 13, but North Judson got within 44-43 on DeBoard’s 3-point play with 48.4 seconds left.
Wilson missed two free throws with 37.0 seconds left, and North Judson called timeout with 20.2 seconds left.
When play resumed, North Judson’s Kaia Burkett, hawked by McCarter, missed a floating 12-footer in traffic, and Rochester freshman Jayla Miller rebounded.
“We had a play designed,” North Judson coach Whitney Combs said. “We were trying to get the last shot. So we haven’t worked on a lot of situational things yet. So that can be put on us. It shouldn’t have come down to that anyway. So that’s not on her.”
Rochester called timeout with 13.5 seconds left after Miller’s rebound.
When play resumed, Hunter threw an inbounds pass to halfcourt against the press, and Wilson made a leaping catch and advanced the ball past halfcourt before giving up her dribble.
North Judson’s Avaree Johnston knocked Wilson’s pass intended to Clevenger out of bounds along the sideline with 8.4 seconds left.
Hunter inbounded again to Clevenger in the backcourt, and Burkett fouled her.
After she made both free throws to push the lead back to three, Rochester called another timeout. They elected not to foul, and Tunis’ 3-point try from 23 feet off the dribble at the buzzer was an air ball.
“R.J., God bless her, they were all over her tonight, and she goes up and buries those babies to win us the game right there,” Rochester coach Joel Burrus said.
Rochester had lost to North Judson the previous two seasons by a combined total of three points. Rochester won at North Judson for the first time since winning there in overtime in 2020.
“I tell you what,” Burrus said. “We wouldn’t have won that game last year. We didn’t win that game last year because we were a year younger. You saw us there. We just knuckled down. Wilson, she looked at me in that timeout, and she’s like, ‘You know what, I missed those free throws. I’m going to go get a stop.’ That’s how she is.”
Audrey Bolinger opened the scoring with a putback, and Rochester hit four 3-pointers within the first five-and-a-half minutes to take a 14-4 lead.
That led to a North Judson timeout with 2:46 left in the quarter, but Hunter outscored the entire North Judson team 10-7 in the first quarter as the lead reached 11.
Hunter is starting while sophomore post Jadyn Field recovers from her knee injury. She said she’s been working on her passing and shooting, especially staying straight and lined up at the basket. She said she still needs work on her dribbling.
“I think it will be pretty tough, but Jayla did pretty well, I think, for her first game and did what she was supposed to, but yeah, we will miss Jadyn,” Hunter said.
Starting Hunter gave the Lady Zs just one post player in Audrey Bolinger; however, that could lead to certain difficulties on the perimeter for opponents, according to Burrus.
“We’ve also talked about with having that one-post lineup and having Hunter in that ‘4’ spot, you always hear all this NBA the stretch 4s and stretch 5s, that’s what she’s able to do,” Burrus said. “You see us bury her down to the corner, or she’s opposite of the ball, she’s a nightmare to guard because all the help has to come out to her. So if that ball swings quickly… she was wide open because they had to help to McCarter and Wilson off the drive.”
Combs said they went to a man press to counter Rochester’s hot shooting start.
“We had to get out and guard the ball,” Combs said. “We were letting them pick-and-roll, and they were open every time. We were letting them shoot whenever they wanted, and when we were trying to press, it was not working. So the second half, we came out, and we did a man-to-man press, and it brought us to life a little bit. … (But) they came with more heart tonight.”
Rochester had three field goals in the second quarter, and McCarter had a hand in all three – a driving banker from the middle of the lane over Lehiy to make it 20-7, an assist to Miller for her first varsity basket to make it 22-9 and a 3-pointer with four seconds left in the half to make it 25-12.
A 3-pointer from Hunter restored a 13-point lead at 31-18 before North Judson countered with a 9-0 run. DeBoard, a junior move-in from Morgan Township, started the run with a 3, and Tunis followed with a 4-point play.
A Wilson free throw and a Clevenger triple late in the third quarter restored a 37-29 lead, but Lehiy scored on a finger roll just before the third-quarter buzzer, and Tunis hit a 3 from the left wing within the first 90 seconds of the fourth quarter.
The lead was down to 37-34 before Hunter answered with another 3 from the right side.
Tunis hit another 3, but McCarter beat Lehiy off the dribble off the left elbow for a layup, and Wilson hit two free throws to get the lead back up to 44-37.
But North Judson forced seven turnovers in the fourth quarter and kept rallying. Meanwhile, Bolinger fouled out with 4:38 left, and Miller had to step in. With Field out and Bolinger on the bench, Burrus praised Miller for filling a vital role.
“We had to put a freshman in there, and these kids are not the freshmen from last year, and what I mean by that is they’re just not as experienced as those girls are,” Burrus said. “I thought Miller did an outstanding job. The minutes that she had, her plus-minus, I can’t even imagine what it was. She did a really quality job. She played great defense without fouling. She got a big rebound down there for us.”
Rochester went 17-0 over the summer before Field went down.
“It gave us a lot of confidence because we beat a lot of big schools like Northridge and Harrison,” Hunter said.
Rochester 46, North Judson 43
ROCHESTER (46) (1-0)
Aubrey Wilson 1 4-8 6, Rylee Clevenger 2 2-2 8, Brailyn Hunter 6 2-2 18, Ella McCarter 4 0-0 10, Audrey Bolinger 1 0-1 2, Jayla Miller 1 0-0 2
TEAM: 15 8-13 46
NORTH JUDSON (43) (0-1)
Shiloh DeBoard 2 5-5 10, Cailyn Tunis 6 4-5 19, Kyleigh Lehiy 3 3-4 10, Avaree Johnston 1 0-0 2, Gracie Minix 0 0-0 0, Macy Morrow 0 0-0 0, Grace Craig 1 0-0 2, Lexi Howard 0 0-0 0, Kaia Burkett 0 0-0 0
TEAM: 13 12-14 43
Three-point field goals:
Rochester 8 (Hunter 4, Clevenger 2, McCarter 2),
North Judson 5 (Tunis 3, Lehiy, DeBoard)
Total fouls: Rochester 16, North Judson 15
Fouled out: Bolinger (RHS), 4:38, fourth
Turnovers: Rochester 18, North Judson 16
Score by quarters
Rochester 18 7 12 9 – 46
North Judson 7 5 19 12 – 43
