Cripe hits 6 treys, leads Pioneer past Central Catholic

Brooke adds 20, Blickenstaff 14 in battle of ranked teams

BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS

Sports Editor, RTC

Girls basketball

Pioneer 64, Lafayette Central Catholic 49 (Tuesday): Hailey Cripe hit six 3-pointers and scored 26 points, and Olivia Brooke added 20 for the Class 1A, No. 8 Lady Panthers in a win over Class 2A, No. 7 Lafayette Central Catholic Tuesday.

Madison Blickenstaff added 14 for Pioneer.

Hailey Cripe

Cripe also made all six of her free throw attempts. As a team, Pioneer went eight for 10 from the line while Central Catholic made five of 14.

Karsyn Cherry scored 16 of her team-high 26 points in the third quarter for Central Catholic.

Pioneer led 27-20 at halftime and 46-42 after three quarters. Pioneer has won five straight games.

Pioneer’s 64 points were the most Central Catholic had allowed in a game this season and the most they had allowed in their last 23 games dating back to last season.

LAFAYETTE CENTRAL CATHOLIC (49) (6-2)

Lutz 2 1-4 5, Rider 1 0-2 2, Thompson 1 1-4 4, Cherry 11 3-4 26, Dineen 4 0-0 12, Cochran 0 0-0 0, McCain 0 0-0 0

TEAM: 19 5-14 49

PIONEER (64) (8-3)

Mackenzie Walker 1 0-0 2, Hailey Cripe 7 6-6 26, Brooklyn Borges 1 0-0 2, Olivia Brooke 10 0-0 20, Madison Blickenstaff 6 2-4 14, Maggie Steffel 0 0-0 0, Crystabelle Blickenstaff 0 0-0 0

TEAM: 25 8-10 64

Three-point field goals:

Lafayette Central Catholic 6 (Dineen 4, Cherry, Thompson),

Pioneer 6 (Cripe 6)

Total fouls: Lafayette Central Catholic 12, Pioneer 11

Fouled out: Brooke (PIO)

Score by quarters

Central Catholic 9 11 22 7 – 49

Pioneer 7 20 19 18 – 64

Pioneer drops to No. 8: Pioneer dropped from No. 6 to No. 8 in this week’s Class 1A coaches poll. The lady Panthers dropped despite a four-game winning streak.

Pioneer adds West Lafayette: Pioneer has added a home game with West Lafayette to its schedule. Game time is 11 a.m./12:30 p.m. (JV/Varsity) Saturday. A Class 3A team, West Lafayette is 8-4 and averages 59 points per game.

Boys basketball

Pioneer at Frontier, canceled: The Pioneer-Frontier boys basketball game scheduled for Friday has been canceled. The Panthers’ next game is a home game against Faith Christian at 6 p.m./7:30 p.m. (JV/Varsity) on Saturday.