Published: December 28, 2007 12:39 am         

South girls take Hall of Fame Classic

New Castle — Terre Haute South made a resoundingly loud statement Thursday night at the New Castle Fieldhouse.

The Braves dominated both of their opponents in the Hall of Fame Classic, winning it with a 69-29 drubbing of Class 2A No. 5 Lapel in the championship game.

South (10-3) rained in four 3-pointers during a 16-point second-quarter blitz that gave it a 37-11 lead and put the game out of reach.

South used a similar run in the first half of its 68-43 semifinal victory over Greenfield-Central, outscoring the Cougars 22-2 to build an 18-point lead.

The Braves’ Hall of Fame victory was its first in school history in three visits to the annual tournament pitting four of the state’s top teams — they were runners-up in 1997-98 and finished third in 2001-02.

“We should’ve won it in ’98 and let it slip out of our fingers,” South coach Alan Maroska said. “We had unfortunate circumstances in ’02. We had a pretty good effort today.”

The 29 points allowed were a tournament record — breaking a mark Beech Grove set against South in the Braves’ last Hall of Fame Classic appearance. Breaking that record was a goal the Braves wanted to reach — and did.

They did so defensively, but offensively, the Braves had Lapel outmanned. They did it by going inside by punching the ball in to 6-foot-3 junior post Dragana Grbic and outside to the 3-point game — which hit 8-of-13 in the opening half.

“We knew we had a lot of quickness and size and we wanted to try to take advantage of both of those attributes,” South coach Alan Maroska said, “and at times, we can shoot from the perimeter pretty well.”

After beating Lapel in transition often to build an 18-9 edge early in the second quarter the Braves went to Grbic.

Grbic hit eight of her last 10 shots, and finished with 17 points and 12 rebounds to lead the Braves in both categories.

Grbic was the tournament MVP with her effort — which also included a 6-point, 6-rebound performance in the opening victory over Greenfield-Central.

“I needed a strong night tonight, and they did a great job of balancing the floor and passing,” Grbic said before addressing her six-assist day. “I think sometimes teams will concentrate too much on me, and that leaves Tessa or somebody else open. I can kick it out and they can score a lot.”

Then, they went outside and began raining 3-pointers.

Freshman Haley Seibert hit back-to-back 3s to get the floodgates opened. Megan Craft drilled a trey two possessions later, and Johnson drained another ahead of the buzzer in the 16-point run. Johnson, Craft and Krista Smith all hit 3s in a third quarter in which the Braves shot 8-of-11 and built the lead to 59-17. The lead would get as high as 63-17 before Lapel made a late run.

“I thought we started out all right, but they got a couple of things to go and we went to a triangle-and-two and they bombed us from 3,” Lapel coach Kevin Brattain said.

Johnson finished with 14 points and nine boards. Smith had 14 points, six rebounds, four assists and three steals.

The Bulldogs — who entered the game with an 11-1 mark and victories over 4A teams Anderson, Anderson Highland, Pendleton Heights and Huntington North — were impressed with South.

“That’s an awful good basketball team,” Brattain said. “They’re not going to lose many games.

“We knew we had to play a perfect game to play with them.”



Championship game

Terre Haute South 69

Player fg 3pt ft r s pf tp

Johnson 5-10 3-5 1-2 9 0 1 14

K.Smith 6-10 1-2 1-4 6 3 1 14

Grbic 8-12 0-0 1-6 12 0 2 17

Rector 1-3 0-1 0-0 3 3 3 2

Craft 2-9 2-6 0-0 2 1 0 6

Seibert 3-4 2-2 0-0 1 1 1 8

Fauber 2-2 0-0 0-0 2 0 0 4

Miller 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 1 1 0

J.Smith 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0

Vollrath 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0

Dietz 1-1 0-0 0-0 1 0 0 2

Mattox 1-1 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 2

Totals 29-52 8-16 3-12 38* 9 9 69

Lapel 29

Player fg 3pt ft r s pf tp

Jennings 3-11 0-4 0-2 6 2 2 6

Prater 2-4 1-1 0-0 3 0 2 5

Skaggs 2-7 0-2 0-0 3 1 1 4

H.Guion 2-6 1-4 0-0 2 0 1 5

Miller 4-11 1-3 0-0 0 0 2 9

B.Guion 0-0 0-0 0-0 1 0 1 0

Bartel 0-2 0-0 0-0 0 1 0 0

Davidson 0-2 0-2 0-2 2 0 1 0

Turner 0-3 0-2 0-0 2 0 0 0

Steele 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 1 0

Allender 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0

Montgomery 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0

Totals 13-46 3-18 0-2 25* 5 11 29

Terre Haute South 14 23 22 10 — 69

Lapel 7 4 6 12 — 29

FG Pct. — THS .558, L .283. 3-pt FG Pct. — THS .500, L .167. FT Pct. — THS .250, L .000. Turnovers — THS 10, L 16. Blocks — THS 5 (Grbic 4), L 3 (Skaggs 2). (*) Includes team rebounds — THS 2, L 6.

Next — Terre Haute South (10-3) plays at Center Grove at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday.



First game

Greenfield Central 43

Player fg 3pt ft r s pf tp

Eckler 0-5 0-1 0-0 3 0 3 0

Hall 1-5 0-0 3-6 7 0 3 5

Lewis 8-19 0-4 4-5 8 5 2 20

Bryant 3-14 1-4 2-2 10 1 3 9

Anderson 1-5 0-2 0-0 1 0 2 2

Blankenship 0-6 0-0 0-2 9 1 1 0

Valentine 1-5 0-0 3-6 3 0 0 5

Lamb 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0

Maurice 0-1 0-0 0-0 1 0 1 0

Klemme 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0

Good 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0

Totals 16-61 2-15 9-17 49* 7 15 43

Terre Haute South 68

Player fg 3pt ft r s pf tp

Johnson 6-13 2-4 2-2 2 0 0 16

K.Smith 8-15 0-3 5-7 4 2 1 21

Grbic 3-9 0-0 0-1 6 2 2 6

Rector 2-5 0-1 0-0 4 1 3 4

Craft 6-7 6-6 1-2 1 2 1 19

Seibert 1-2 0-1 0-1 3 0 1 2

Fauber 0-1 0-0 0-2 3 0 0 0

Miller 0-0 0-0 0-0 1 0 0 0

J.Smith 0-2 0-2 0-0 1 0 1 0

Vollrath 0-1 0-1 0-0 2 0 0 0

Mattox 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 1 0

Dietz 0-1 0-0 0-0 0 0 1 0

Totals 26-56 8-18 8-15 34* 11 10 68

Greenfield Central 14 10 9 10 — 43

Terre Haute South 23 17 17 11 — 68

FG Pct. — GC .262, THS .464. 3-pt FG Pct. — GC .133, THS .444. FT Pct. — GC .529, THS .533. Turnovers — GC 17, THS 16. Blocks — GC 1 (Lewis), THS 1 (K.Smith). (*) Includes team rebounds — GC 7, THS 7.