By Al Lesar
Southbendtribune.com
As storylines go, those fortunes made the difference.
Goshert, just a sophomore, scored Wawasee’s first 18 points and finished with 29 to lead the seventh-ranked Warriors (22-3) to a stunning 58-46 Class 3A northern Semistate upset of top-ranked St. Joseph’s (23-3) Saturday.
Wawasee advances to next Saturday’s Class 3A state championship game against Brebeuf Jesuit at Conseco Fieldhouse in
“We’re experienced enough to be dangerous, and young enough to be foolish,” Wawasee coach Kem Zolman said of his team. “It’s hard to explain how gritty these kids are. They’ll do goofy things, but you see the grit and determination come through.”
There was plenty of grit and lots of determination. But it was hard to explain exactly what went wrong for the Indians. St. Joe committed 10 of its 20 turnovers in a pivotal first quarter. Smallbone connected on three of 15 shots and scored 11 points.
“We opened the door, gave them a chance and they took it,” St. Joe coach Mike Megyese said with a shrug. “We had too many turnovers at the wrong time. We didn’t make a lot of right decisions.”
Doors got slammed open all afternoon at North Side Gym.
Early in the game, St. Joe led 10-3 and was dictating the tempo. Smallbone, the Indians’ top gun, picked up her second foul with 3:02 to play in the first quarter. That loss of momentum, as Smallbone went to the bench, and Goshert’s moxie turned the tide.
“A game like this, we had nothing to lose,” Goshert said. “My teammates were struggling, so I figured it was up to me to make something happen. I guess they just kind of lost me in our offense.”
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Goshert not only picked the Warriors up, she lugged them around on her back for two quarters. After trailing by seven, Wawasee ran off 21 straight points — the first 15 came from Goshert. By halftime, the Warriors led by 12 and Goshert had 22 points.
“We’re up 10-3 and we didn’t step up,” Megyese said. “We let Goshert take over the game. She wasn’t doing anything special, she just hit her shots.”
It took Wawasee four minutes into the third quarter to score its first points of the second half, but in that time St. Joe could only cut the deficit to seven.
The start of the fourth quarter was critical. Baskets by St. Joe inside threats Kristen Dockery, who had 14 points, and Becky Newsom got the difference to three, 39-36. A turnover gave the Indians the ball under their own basket.
St. Joe threw away the inbounds pass and Goshert converted a bucket. Another St. Joe turnover and a missed shot allowed Wawasee to stretch the lead back to nine and the Indians never threatened.
“We went through a stretch there where nobody wanted the ball,” Zolman said. “We’ve had that all year. We’ve also recovered from that every time, so I figured we would again.”
“Give the credit to Wawasee, they were the best team today,” Megyese said. “We played as bad as we have all season and we were still in the game. We were able to get the ball inside, better than we thought we could, but we couldn’t finish.”
Wawasee’s Brennan McAdams scored eight of her 10 points in the fourth quarter. St. Joe’s DeBorah Wilson had eight of her 12 points in the first half.
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