SEYMOUR — The New Albany girls’ basketball team hoped its hot shooting in the fourth quarter of Friday’s semifinal win over Seymour would carry over into Saturday’s Class 4A Seymour Sectional championship game at Scott Gym against Bedford North Lawrence.

Unfortunately, the Bulldogs cooled off.

New Albany connected on only 33 percent of its field-goal attempts (14-of-42) to lose to the Stars in the sectional final, 48-36. The Bulldogs’ 36 points were a season-low.

“Our goal was to hold them to 50 tonight,” New Albany head coach Tammy Geron said. “But we just couldn’t do the things we needed to do offensively.”

It was the Stars’ first sectional title in the class basketball era. Their last sectional championship came in the last year of the single-class tournament in 1997. Bedford will face Castle (11-11), a 74-46 winner over Evansville Harrison in Saturday’s Class 4A Evansville Central Sectional title game, in the first semifinal of the Class 4A Bedford Regional next Saturday.

“That’s what we wanted,” said Stars’ head coach Kurt Godlevske while pointing at a ladder sitting underneath one of the Scott Gym goals for his players to climb up and cut down one of the nets. “We wanted to find a ladder and cut down the nets. It’s a relief and it hasn’t sunk in yet.”

The Bulldogs’ shooting was ice cold right from the outset. They were 1-of-9 from the field in the first quarter, as Bedford (22-2) took an 11-3 lead at the end of the stanza. Making matters worse for New Albany was six of its 16 turnovers happened in the opening period.

“I think a little bit of it was nerves,” Geron said about the Bulldogs’ slow start. “We were not aggressive attacking the basket. We had no penetration into their defense.”

Bedford’s lead grew to 11 points at halftime at 23-12 thanks to a buzzer-beating 3-pointer at the end of the first half by sophomore Brittani Rizzi.

“To give up 12 points in the first half, that was huge for us,” Godlevske said. “I thought we came out at the start of the game and got after them.”

New Albany (16-6) ended up shooting 25 percent in the opening 16 minutes (4-of-16). But a more important statistic in the first half was second-chance points, as the Stars scored 11 of their 23 points off offensive rebounds.

At the start of the third quarter, Bedford scored five quick points on a Leah Myers layup and a 3-pointer by Sammy Dillman to take its largest advantage of the game at 28-12.

The Bulldogs cut their deficit to seven points on three different instances during the second half, but they failed to get any closer to the Stars.

Geron gave a few reasons why her players could not narrow the gap any further in the latter half.

“We couldn’t get to the free-throw line. They are way too physical for our style. Their physical style took a toll on us,” Geron said. “We rely on our guards to get buckets in the paint. But we had a tough time getting into the paint tonight.”

Junior Tanner Marcum led New Albany with 12 points, shooting 6-of-15 from the floor. Bulldog guard Kamaren Cole chipped in 10 points, while junior Kayla Ferber added eight. New Albany forward Tisha Langford grabbed a game-high 11 rebounds.

The Bulldogs say goodbye to three seniors in Cole, Langford and Tionna Peters.

Freshman Dominique McBryde paced a balanced Bedford offensive attack with 10 points along with eight rebounds. Myers had nine points and a team-high nine boards.

Also for the Stars, freshman Jenna Allen scored eight points and Dillman and Alexa Bailey each had seven. Bailey is the daughter of 1990 Indiana Mr. Basketball and former BNL and Indiana University standout Damon Bailey, who is an assistant coach for the Stars.



BEDFORD NL    11 12 11 14—48

NEW ALBANY     3  9 12 12—36

Bedford North Lawrence (22-2) — McBryde 10, Myers 9, Allen 8, Bailey 7, Dillman 7, Rizzi 5, Matlock 2.

New Albany (16-6) — Marcum 12, Cole 10, Ferber 8, Peters 5, Langford 1, Camm 0, Iglesias 0, Nixon 0.

3-point field goals — Bedford 2 (Dillman, Rizzi); New Albany 2 (Cole 2).

Rebounds — Bedford 28 (Myers 9); New Albany 30 (Langford 11).

Turnovers — Bedford 12, New Albany 16.

Free throws — Bedford 16-21, New Albany 6-11.