IHSAA girls basketball: Lawrence North, Ben Davis advance to semistate

Monica Williams was a freshman when Lawrence North last won a regional championship. Three years later, she and the Wildcats found themselves back at Decatur Central on the same state tournament stage, but with a new head coach (Stephen Thomas) and for Williams, with three-plus years of varsity experience under her belt.

The 5-9 Ohio commit didn't play a significant role with the 2020 team, but this was her time. And she commanded the starring role. Williams poured in a team-high 18 points to punch her team's ticket to Class 4A semistate with a 65-58 victory over Brownsburg.

The Wildcats have leaned on Williams in critical moments throughout the season, and they couldn't have asked for much more from her Saturday afternoon. She stemmed the momentum of a 14-1 run and drilled a go-ahead 3-pointer in the third quarter, then helped ice the win with a couple buckets and a pair of free throws in the fourth.

Girls basketball: IHSAA tournament regional scores, updates, highlights

"That girl's earned it," Thomas said of Williams, who scored 12 points in the second half. "She's had a heck of a career. We've asked a lot of her and now she's reaping all the rewards from the work she's put in."

Kamara Mills matched Williams with 18 points — 11 of which came in the fourth quarter — while Kya Hurt tallied 12 points and Laniya Early added 11.

Lawrence North (17-9) converted 14-of-15 free throws over the final eight minutes en route to its fifth regional championship in program history. It will learn its semistate opponent Sunday afternoon.

"This is so exciting. Not only for our team, but for our community of Lawrence," Thomas beamed as a couple players emptied their water bottles over his head. "We just keep building this tradition. They love each other and we're just having a great time, having fun."

Saturday's game was defined by runs.

Lawrence North out-scored Brownsburg 26-8 to build a 13-point lead midway through the second quarter, but the Bulldogs stabilized and rallied with a 14-1 charge between halves to claim a 35-33 advantage following a Megan Eaker 3-pointer with 3:53 left in the third.

Brownsburg's massive charge was keyed by the return of 6-6 sophomore Avery Gordon, who checked in with three fouls midway through the second quarter and immediately sank back-to-back buckets inside as part of an 8-2 run that brought her side back to life.

Thomas urged his team to maintain composure as Brownsburg made its go-ahead charge, reminding them between plays and during timeouts that it's a game of runs. When Williams attacked the basket and drew a fourth foul on Gordon with the score tied at 35 and 3:24 left in the third quarter, the game turned. "That's when we knew we had to push," said Williams, who made a couple plays defensively to slow Brownsburg's momentum, then scored six straight points to give LN the lead.

Gordon returned early in the fourth quarter and hit a quick basket to make it 45-42, but Lawrence North retaliated with a 12-3 run to put the game away.

"There were situations where we should have made better decisions on offense. We took ill-advised shots and you can't do that against good teams," Smiley said.

"We were feeding Avery at the start of the third quarter, but then we started driving to the basket and taking (3-pointers) instead of continuing to give her the ball," she continued. "We went away from that and shame on us. That was us hurting ourselves. But credit to LN. They hit a lot of shots."

Eaker led Brownsburg with 15 points, while Gordon added 14. Senior point guard Kailyn Terrell logged 12 points for the Bulldogs (16-10).

Lawrence North enters semistate on a four-game win streak, with wins in six of its past eight.

"We started this season as underdogs, everybody doubted us," Early said. "So we have something to prove. We've been putting in the work. We're here."

Ben Davis rides its defense to rout of Mt. Vernon

Taylor Guess went with pressure. Cristen Carter called it suffocating. The seniors were asked to describe Ben Davis' defense in one word and though equally appropriate answers, chaotic and electrifying would have worked, too. Whatever word you want to use, the Giants are virtually unstoppable when their defense is on point — using their relentless pressure to turn teams over and generating easy scoring opportunities — and they were at their best in Saturday's regional, taking out Mt. Vernon, 53-28, with a suffocating defensive effort.

"Today? We were tenacious," coach Stan Benge grinned.

"The plan was to play good defense and get after the offensive boards," Carter said. "We wanted to make every shot they took a hard, contested shot."

With mismatches in their man defense — specifically the lack of a true post player for their post to guard — the Giants ran their traps more aggressively, Benge said, and focused on taking away their shooters. It wasn't necessarily a new defense, he continued, but the way they ran it was different.

The results were fairly immediate.

After surrendering a 3-pointer to Ellery Minch, the Giants responded with an 8-0 run, capped off by Zoe Wheeler, who converted a steal into a 3-pointer to leave the margin at seven midway through the quarter.

The score sat at 12-6 after one, then grew to 26-10 at the half.

The Marauders did well to stay within striking distance through the first quarter-plus, but senior Khloe Patterson ran into foul trouble late in the second quarter, which allowed their opponent to start pulling away.

"Not that we were ever winning … but we were within 4-10 points pretty consistently until that three-minute stretch when I had to sit Khloe and they broke it open," coach Julie Shelton said. "Then I think we were just deflated knowing that for us to come back from that deficit against this team was going to be tough."

Wheeler led the way with 16 points for Ben Davis, which led by 31 after three quarters. Guess added 14 points and Kaleah Toomer finished with 13.

The Giants lost six of eight games between Dec. 15 and Jan. 21. They have since won six straight.

"Everybody doubting us made us feel like we could do this, we got this in the bag," Guess said.

"We all believe in each other and know we want the best for each other," Carter added. "So we just keep encouraging each other and remember we can do it all if we stick together."

Minch led Mt. Vernon with 16 points, while Patterson added six. The Marauders (19-7) were held to eight total field goals.

"This really reminds me of when we played Ben Davis five years ago and they beat us about this bad," Shelton said. "And I told the girls, you have two choices. We have a lot of kids back. You can make the same jump we made from last summer to now and be able to compete in a regional next year, or we can be satisfied with where we were this year. And hopefully just like five years ago, they'll want to compete and continue to get better."

Follow Brian Haenchen on Twitter at @Brian_Haenchen.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indiana girls basketball regionals: Lawrence North, Ben Davis advance