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Gibson adds career-high 14 for Argos
BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS
Sports Editor, RTC
ARGOS — Cailyn Tunis scored 16 of her game-high 25 points in the second half, and the North Judson girls basketball team rallied from a 12-point second quarter deficit to beat conference and sectional rival Argos 59-46 at Phil Weybright Gymnasium Thursday.
Grace Craig added 10 points, and Shiloh DeBoard and Lexi Howard had nine each for North Judson, who won their sixth straight game and improved to 6-2 overall and 2-0 in the Hoosier North.
Argos fell to 3-7, 1-3 despite getting double-doubles from both Morgyn Barcus and Ellie Bollenbacher and a career-high scoring night from Lexi Gibson.
Barcus had 17 points, all in the first half, and 10 rebounds, Gibson had 14, and Bollenbacher had 10 points and 12 rebounds.
But Argos had 13 turnovers in the third quarter and 27 for the game.
“I don’t think that was North Judson’s defense,” Argos first-year coach Brian Jennings said. “I think that was just all us. We just didn’t have that person step up and say, ‘Hey, I’m going to take care of the basketball.’ And when one person started to panic, then the next person started to panic. We didn’t jump-stop when we stopped, and we didn’t really need to stop. It was just, OK, I’ve dribbled far enough, and then we traveled. I told them in the locker room I really don’t think North Judson beat us tonight. I think we just beat ourselves.
“When we executed our offense, we did pretty well, and I don’t think it was North Judson really that took us out of our offense. We just didn’t have the leadership step up tonight, get the ball, get a set under pressure and run the things we needed to do.”
Argos led 29-17 on a Barcus 18-footer with 1:25 left in the first half, but North Judson responded with a 16-1 surge covering the second and third quarters, and Barcus never scored again.
Howard and Tunis, who combined for seven 3-pointers, each hit a 3 to get North Judson within 29-25 at halftime.
Alydiah Leed split a pair of free throws for Argos to start the scoring in the second half, but Gracie Minix hit a short jumper, Tunis hit a cutting banker off a DeBoard feed, and Craig made a pair of layups to put North Judson ahead 33-30.
Leed hit a 3-pointer to break Argos’ five-and-a-half field goal drought and tie the game, but Tunis hit a pair of free throws with 3:43 left in the quarter to put North Judson ahead for good at 35-33.
Tunis would later hit a spinning banker in the lane off dribble penetration, a pullup 19-footer and a 23-footer with two seconds left in the quarter to give North Judson their biggest lead at 44-38.
Tunis outscored the entire Argos team 11-9 in the third quarter, and her late triple teed off a 14-0 run.
Argos had a 5:37 scoreless drought that Gibson finally broke with a 3-pointer from the left wing, but by then, North Judson had expanded their lead to 55-41 with 3:20 left.
They led by as many as 18 in the fourth quarter.
North Judson played without senior Kyleigh Lehiy and sophomore Avaree Johnston, both of whom started the season opener against Rochester one month ago. Reserve guard Kaia Burkett appeared to suffer a left knee injury with 2:57 left in the first half and had to be carried off by coach Whitney Combs.
“Originally, the game plan going in – and we didn’t know Lehiy was going to be out until we were here,” Jennings said. “So we weren’t really going to do anything special because we just thought they had three weapons, and then I thought whoever number 15 is (Johnston) that plays the point, she drives really well. So I thought they had enough weapons to go along with (post Gracie) Minix that we just had to play everybody. So we were just going to try to stay back in our 2-3 zone, and they like to drive and draw fouls. And I think our biggest thing is let’s try to cut down their driving lanes. I thought for most of the first half, we did that pretty well. And then when they got in foul trouble, we decided to extend our defense a little bit, and I think that helped us a little bit gain some energy and momentum.
“But second half, our defense wasn’t moving quite as well. They got into the lanes, and when they got into the lanes, they had some kickouts and knocked down some shots. So hey, kudos to them. They took advantage of what we were giving them.”
Argos trailed 6-5 in the first quarter when North Judson was called for six fouls in a 1:27 span, all while Argos was in the bonus. Bollenbacher and Barcus combined to make seven free throws and give Argos a 12-6 lead.
North Judson narrowed the margin to 14-12 on a DeBoard pullup in the second quarter, but Barcus hit a 3 and scored again on a steal and a layup. A Gibson steal and layup made it 21-12 and led to a North Judson timeout.
A left corner 3 from Gibson made it 25-15. DeBoard split a pair of free throws, but Gibson scored in transition off a Barcus assist to make it 27-16. DeBoard split another pair from the line before Barcus used a high ball screen and gave Argos their biggest lead yet.
North Judson 59, Argos 46
NORTH JUDSON (59) (6-2, 2-0)
Shiloh DeBoard 3 3-6 9, Cailyn Tunis 8 5-6 25, Kaia Burkett 1 0-0 2, Grace Craig 4 2-4 10, Gracie Minix 2 0-0 4, Macy Morrow 0 0-0 0, Lexi Howard 3 0-0 9, Charlize Boyd 0 0-0 0
TEAM: 21 10-16 59
ARGOS (46) (3-7, 1-3)
Alydiah Leed 1 2-4 5, Leah Pizzuto 0 0-4 0, Morgyn Barcus 5 6-11 17, Lexi Gibson 5 2-2 14, Ellie Bollenbacher 2 6-8 10, Makenzie Smith 0 0-0 0, Kinzlee Kelly 0 0-0 0, Haley Shafer 0 0-0 0
TEAM: 13 16-29 46
Three-point field goals:
North Judson 7 (Tunis 4, Howard 3),
Argos 4 (Gibson 2, Barcus, Leed)
Total fouls: North Judson 22, Argos 15
Fouled out: Morrow (NJSP), :31.3, fourth
Turnovers: North Judson 19, Argos 27
Score by quarters
North Judson 9 16 19 15 – 59
Argos 12 17 9 8 – 46
