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BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS
Sports Editor, RTC
Ava McCune Amiyah Williams Brianna Schlemmer
FULTON — The Culver girls basketball team went into its winter break with a conference win.
Sixteen days later, they returned and earned another.
Ava McCune scored 11 points and Amiyah Williams added 10 points and seven rebounds to help the Lady Cavaliers beat host Caston 34-26 Thursday.
Culver made only one of six free throws and committed 19 turnovers but still improved to 9-7 overall and 5-2 in the Hoosier North.
Madi Douglass led Caston with 10 points, and Grace Colvin added nine. Caston dropped to 6-11, 3-4.
Culver has held six opponents under 30 points in a game this year. They did it only twice last year. Douglass came in averaging 18 points per game, but Culver held her without a field goal in the fourth quarter.
“We looked at her as 1A, 1B, 1C,” Culver coach Adam Neace said of Douglass. “Whenever she got the ball in her hands, she was trying to attack. She’s very aggressive. We knew she was really going to bring it tonight, but if we could hold her down, we thought we would have a lot of success, and tonight we really did.”
Culver went on a 14-2 run covering the first and second quarters to build a 12-point lead. The run started with Brynn Berndt putting back an Ashlynn Berndt air ball and a steal and layup from McCune.
Colvin knocked down a 17-footer, but McCune scored on a putback to make it 11-7 after one quarter.
In the second quarter, Brianna Schlemmer’s post entry pass led to a layup for Williams. On the next possession, Williams drew a crowd in the post and kicked out to McCune for a 3-pointer.
After a Caston missed shot, Ashlynn Berndt pulled down the rebound and kicked out to a leaking McCune for a transition layup.
McCune, a freshman, has the ball in her hands much of the time. She said she and Ashlynn Berndt are “really close” and have an unspoken bond.
“Pretty fun, I guess,” McCune said of her freshman season. “My teammates really make things enjoyable.”
Brynn Berndt completed the run with a free throw to make it 19-7.
Caston would battle to within 21-18 with 4:15 left in the third quarter, but Schlemmer hit a 3, and Williams cut to the hoop for a banker.
The Lady Comets fought back to within 26-22 after three quarters on a Colvin putback from 12 feet and a Douglass transition layup that Hadlie Coffing set up with a steal.
Still, Caston struggled to turn Culver’s turnovers into points.
“The ball’s got to fall into the right kids’ hands that can be able to handle that and turn them into points, right?” Caston coach Josh Douglass said. “So we had good turnovers, and we didn’t capitalize on them. Either we didn’t get set up right, didn’t fill our lanes right or turnover to turnover haul, right?”
But Caston would not score against Culver’s 2-3 zone for the first 6:01 of the fourth quarter, and they never got closer.
McCune scored on a short banker in transition off an Ashlynn Berndt assist, and Williams scored off a Brynn Berndt feed to make it 30-22.
“A little bit actually,” McCune responded when asked if the game got stressful in the fourth quarter. “We just had to communicate better. Our shots weren’t dropping.”
Ashlynn Berndt later assisted on another Williams bucket and a Brynn Berndt layup in the final minute.
“I thought there in the fourth quarter, we did a great job,” Neace said. “I really thought our ball movement really took another step. Again at times, we looked really good moving the ball and getting wide-open layups. Now, make some of them wide-open layups, and I think the score could have been a little bit different.
“A lot of coaches talk about space all the time. If we have correct space, it makes life a lot easier. And tonight, we weren’t jamming everything up clogging the paint.”
Caston’s next two games are against Tri-County and Bethany Christian, the teams they beat in last year’s sectional final and regional, respectively.
“I’m really proud of them,” coach Douglass said. “If you saw us against South Bend St. Joe (a 38-30 loss on Tuesday), that was a two, three-point game with two, three minutes to go. And they’re pretty good. They can all handle the ball, and we held with them. Again, I thought tonight we grew up. We’re playing hard. We’re not making anything easy – a different style game, a very physical game, and we figured we had to match it. Then we had the Triton game, where we’re kind of down but we kept grinding, we were playing hard, and good things started happening. I’m really, really proud of these girls over the last three games. I thought they made strides. You can kind of see the light bulb going off. Things that we talked about earlier in the year are starting to come together on the court.”
Game notes
Caston reserve post player Natalie Warner left the game with 5:40 left with a right thumb injury and did not return. Coach Douglass said she reaggravated an injury suffered while playing powder puff football.
Douglass was assessed a technical foul with 3:24 left in the half. That came after an official warning at the 4:43 mark. Caston was not called for a foul the final 19:24 of the game.
“We have not played in that type of physical game this year,” coach Douglass said. “The last time I remember that type of physical game was last year’s sectionals. All these girls are kind of new to that physical type of defense.”
Caston took the JV game 22-13. Coffing had eight, Warner had four, Ellie Zartman and Adyson Steininger had three each, and Ava Russell and Gigi Berry had two each.
Kali England had six to lead Culver. Eliana Andrzejewski had four, and Ava McCune had three.
Culver 34, Caston 26
CULVER (34) (9-7, 5-2)
Ava McCune 4 0-0 9, Maddy Hamilton 1 0-2 3, Brynn Berndt 3 1-4 7, Brooke Davis 0 0-0 0, Amiyah Williams 6 0-0 12, Ashlynn Berndt 0 0-0 0, Brianna Schlemmer 1 0-0 3
TEAM: 15 1-6 34
CASTON (26) (6-11, 3-4)
Camila Hernandez-Rios 0 0-0 0, Grace Colvin 3 2-2 9, Madi Douglass 4 1-2 10, Olivia Thomas 1 0-0 2, Allison Craig 0 0-0 0, Ellie Zartman 0 0-0 0, Hadlie Coffing 1 0-0 3, Natalie Warner 0 0-0 0, Adyson Steininger 0 0-0 0, Gigi Berry 1 0-0 2
TEAM: 10 3-4 26
Three-point field goals:
Culver 3 (Schlemmer, Hamilton, McCune),
Caston 3 (Coffing, Colvin, Douglass)
Total fouls: Culver 10, Caston 3
Technical foul: CAS bench, 3:24, second
Turnovers: Culver 19, Caston 13
Score by quarters
Culver 11 10 5 8 – 34
Caston 7 7 8 4 – 26
JV: Caston 22, Culver 13
McCune’s last-second steal secures Culver win over North Miami
CULVER — Ava McCune scored 16 points and had the game-clinching steal on an inbounds pass with 2.8 seconds left to help the Culver girls basketball team to beat North Miami 38-36 on Dec. 23 at John R. Nelson Gymnasium.
Amiyah Williams added 12 for Culver, who improved to 8-7 overall and 4-2 in the Hoosier North.
Grace Sailors scored 11 points, and Laney Musall had 10 for North Miami, who dropped to 5-5, 2-1.
Sailors hit an 18-footer to cut the deficit to 38-36, and North Miami regained possession when Culver’s Ashlynn Berndt missed two free throws with 17.1 seconds left.
After a North Miami timeout, Musall missed a 3-pointer, but teammate Porscha Pickett grabbed an offensive rebound.
North Miami called another timeout with 2.8 seconds left.
But McCune pilfered the ensuing inbounds pass and dribbled into the frontcourt as time expired.
“Again, we’re trying to keep the ball out of 10’s (Musall’s) hands,” Culver coach Adam Neace said. “We knew the ball was trying to go into her hands. We tried to take her away, and I thought we had great pressure from both girls on top – Ava and Ashlynn. Ava’s starting to read eyes a lot better, and again, anticipated it and got the steal. I’m surprised she didn’t try to finish it. Again, great job by her.”
North Miami coach Nathan Curtis said the call was to use Musall, the team’s leading scorer, as a “decoy.”
“We missed a screen in the middle, and we had Grace coming off the back side,” Curtis said. “It was kind of a busted play on our part, and they did a good job on defense, and they ended up getting a tipped pass. If I had to do it over again, I probably would put Vic (Victoria Masters) on the court and let Donaldson take it in because she’s a little taller with her size. Those passes are all tougher for her sometimes.”
Ashlynn Berndt’s assist to McCune for a transition layup gave Culver a 28-26 lead with 1:15 left in the third quarter, and Culver never trailed again.
Culver led 29-26 after three quarters. North Miami would creep within 34-32 on a Pickett 3-pointer from the left corner, but Brooke Davis grabbed a deflected ball and scored, and Ashlynn Berndt would find McCune for another bucket in transition to make it 38-32 with 1:21 left.
Culver was coming off a 62-4 win over South Bend Career Academy in its previous game. Williams said this win was more satisfying.
“It feels way different,” Williams said. “It feels a lot better because our team won actually as a team. The 62-4 win was obviously an easier win. Tonight we worked hard, and we put four quarters of basketball together.”
North Miami led 10-8 after one quarter on a Musall 15-footer from the baseline, but Culver held North Miami to just one point in the second quarter.
McCune got a layup on a press breaker, and Brianna Schlemnmer and Ashlynn Berndt both hit treys to make it 16-10.
It was 17-11 at halftime. Neither team scored in the final 3:47 of the half as Culver’s aggressive zone and North Miami’s pressure packages led to a stalemate.
“At times, we kind of peed down our leg, as the saying goes,” Neace said. “Again, got nervous. Made bad mistakes with it. But again, once we finally calmed down and were able to execute what we were trying to do, it was really one look ahead, and it was Ava down the floor, and again, she had a couple and-ones just from running transition.
“We’re preaching her to get the ball into your hands in the open court at the rim every time, and she did a great job of that.”
Culver was playing their 10th game in 20 days. They went 6-4 during that span. Their eight wins are twice as many as they had last season.
“I’m a little tired, yeah, but the wins keep us alive, and as a team, our team picks each other up, so when we do lose, we just pick each other up, and we just move on to the next game,” Williams said.
Culver 38, North Miami 36
NORTH MIAMI (36) (5-5, 2-1)
Victoria Masters 0 0-0 0, Layla Hampton 0 1-2 1, Laney Musall 3 3-4 10, Grace Sailors 5 1-1 11, Kayden Donaldson 3 1-2 7, Laina Kling 0 0-0 0, Brealyn Correll 0 0-0 0, Porscha Pickett 3 0-1 7
TEAM: 14 6-10 36
CULVER (38) (8-7, 4-2)
Ava McCune 7 2-6 16, Ashlynn Berndt 1 0-2 3, Brynn Berndt 0 0-0 0, Brooke Davis 2 0-0 4, Amiyah Williams 4 4-5 12, Maddy Hamilton 0 0-0 0, Brianna Schlemmer 1 0-0 3
TEAM: 15 6-13 38
Three-point field goals:
North Miami 2 (Musall, Pickett),
Culver 2 (A. Berndt, Schlemmer)
Total fouls: North Miami 14, Culver 12
Score by quarters
North Miami 10 1 15 10 – 36
Culver 8 9 12 9 – 38
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