By Justin Sokeland
WBIW.com
TRAFALGAR – After a second half of frozen misfires and lost leads, nobody on Bedford North Lawrence was a likely candidate to hit a jump shot. As the minutes dragged and the rim on that end of Indian Creek’s court started to lose paint chips, most of the Stars were gun shy and hesitant to launch.
So when Miley Sherrill popped wide open in transition on the first possession of overtime, she had to take it. Left wing, behind the bonus arc, not a defensive soul within shadow-casting distance. Time for someone to come through with a clutch moment. Sherrill’s stroke was special delivery. Swish.
That bomb, followed by Sammie Nusbuam’s breakaway, was the stress relief everyone in red desperately needed. The Stars carried that momentum for the rest of the “free basketball” minutes while escaping with a rough road victory.
BNL shook off a frustrating second-half slump to clip the Braves 56-53 on Saturday afternoon. Sherrill scored 18 points, and the Stars (13-5) converted enough free throws in the last two minutes to fend off Indian Creek (8-10). BNL recorded its first overtime win since the epic thriller against Jeffersonville during the 2018 sectional final.
The Braves were resilient, hard to put away. They erased a seven-point deficit in the fourth quarter, got a lane basket from Ellie Oliver with two seconds left in regulation to force the extra session, then almost wiped out BNL’s 54-47 advantage in the overtime. BNL didn’t slip away until Oliver’s off-balance bomb from the right wing floated down harmlessly in the final seconds.
“That’s a really difficult team to beat, especially at home,” BNL coach Chase Spreen said. “We didn’t give our best effort from an offensive standpoint, we made some errors we don’t normally make. But we figured out a way to win. It takes a good team to beat that team. Good teams figure out a way to win games like that.”
Figure this out. BNL started the second half with Sherrill’s 3-point play for a comfortable 31-22 lead. From that point, the Stars missed eight consecutive shots (six from deep) to end the third quarter. In fact, their next bucket came with 2:56 left in regulation, when Sherrill popped loose for a layup inside the Indian Creek zone. That was a 1-for-11 skid.
When Nusbaum followed up a miss for a rebound bucket, BNL owned a 44-41 lead with a minute remaining. But the Braves battled back with free throws by Alexa Sichting and Oliver’s shuffling basket amidst swarming traffic in the paint to end regulation.
“We thought ‘new life,’” IC coach Brian Ferris said. But then Sherrill’s bomb sucked out that life from the Braves. “That shot was like ‘ugh’. If we had not missed two bunnies before that, it might not have felt the same. But it tightened us up a little and we had to play from behind again.”
Sherrill admitted to a brief bit of hesitation. Then she let it fly, right in front of the BNL bench.
“That really got us started,” Spreen said. “Miley knows she is a kid who has to step up in situations like that. She did.”
In addition to the Sherrill punch, Nusbaum finsihed with 15 points and Trinidy Bailey totaled 14. The Stars made six treys in the first half, then only the Sherrill one after intermission. Thankfully, BNL made 17 free throws in that same span, including key ones from Elahdy Ray, Sherrill and Bailey in the final minute of overtime.
Sichting paced the Braves with 21 points and 14 rebounds, while Oliver totaled 10 points. Those two six-footers form quite a powerful tandem, and they do excellent work in the interior while finding each other.
“We have that advantage a lot,” Ferris said. “If they are playing well together, it gets a lot of focus from the defense. It’s a nice 1-2 punch.”
Indian Creek had to overcome a quiet second quarter (7 points) and 18 turnovers. The Braves won the rebounding battle by a 33-23 count.
“If we could get rid of that second quarter, we would not have been in such a hole,” Ferris said.
“We had our hands full with those kids,” Spreen said. “With their size, it was good for us. We will play sectional teams with that size. We did a good job of it.”
“We do it on the defensive end,” Sherrill said. “Shout out to Jordan (Blann), she did a great job (on the perimeter). We played really well together on the defensive end, and that got us going on offense. We knew it would be a dogfight, but we got it done.”
BNL will host Columbus East on Tuesday.
BEDFORD NL STARS (56)
3s FGs FTs R F Pts
23 Sammie Nusbaum, f 2-4 5-8 3-4 4 1 15
22 Miley Sherrill, f 2-4 5-11 6-9 5 3 18
32 Trinidy Bailey, 32 1-2 3-10 7-11 6 3 14
21 Jordan Blann, g 2-7 2-7 0-0 0 2 6
11 Paige Burton, g 0-0 1-2 0-0 3 0 2
12 Elahdy Ray 0-1 0-1 1-2 2 5 1
24 Caroline Sheldon 0-1 0-1 0-0 0 0 0
Totals 7-19 16-40 17-26 23 14 56
INDIAN CREEK BRAVES (53)
3s FGs FTs R FPts
32 Alexa Sichting, f 0-0 9-14 3-4 14 1 21
24 Ellie Oliver, f 1-4 4-12 1-1 7 4 10
14 Reagan Ferris, g 1-2 2-5 0-0 4 4 5
3 Madi Bracken, g 0-2 3-7 2-2 1 3 8
10 Reese Tunell, g 0-0 1-3 0-0 3 5 2
4 Gracie Werden 1-3 2-6 0-0 3 1 5
2 Karlie Werden 0-0 1-1 0-0 0 1 2
23 Luci Horton 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0
44 Meganlyn Ferguson 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 1 0
Totals 3-11 22-48 6-8 33 20 53
Bedford NL 11 17 10 7 11 – 56
Indian Creek 13 7 10 15 8 – 53
Turnovers – BNL 12, Indian Creek 18
Field goal percentage – BNL 16-40 (.400); Indian Creek 22-48 (.458)
Free throw percentage – BNL 17-26 (.654); Indian Creek 6-8 (.750)
