Despite FT woes, Northfield rallies to beat Rochester in OT

Field sisters combine for 20, Hunter adds 10

BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS

Sports Editor, RTC

Brailyn Hunter

WABASH — The Rochester girls basketball had a six-point lead against Northfield with 2:55 left at Kaltenmark Gym Thursday. Then Jadyn Field fouled out, and the game changed in a direction Rochester could not reverse, no matter how many free throws Northfield missed.

Teagan Baer scored a game-high 20 points, Faith Krom added 10, and Gemma Haupert scored the game-tying basket in regulation and then added four more points in the overtime as Northfield beat the visiting Lady Zs 47-39.

Field led the Lady Zs with 11 points, and she added eight rebounds. But after she fouled out, Northfield outscored Rochester 17-3 the rest of the way – 6-0 in regulation and 11-3 in the overtime.

Brailyn Hunter added 10, including a personal 8-0 run to start the fourth quarter that gave Rochester their biggest lead at 34-27.

Ali Field contributed nine points and 10 rebounds before fouling out with 1:23 left in overtime.

“Some of these fouls have got to go,” Rochester coach Joel Burrus said. “They have got to go. I am over it. We need both Fields on the floor. We need them on the floor. We need them in the game, and when they’re over here on the bench in crunch time, it’s going to be pretty hard for us to win, especially against a team that’s got three six-footers on the floor and Baer. And then we held (Laney) Haupert to zero points. That wasn’t on my bingo card, holding her to zero points.”

Northfield improved to 15-6 overall and finished conference play 5-4. Rochester dropped to 10-11 and finished 3-6 in the TRC.

Rochester led 36-30 when Jadyn Field dropped in a layup off Hunter’s dribble penetration and dump-down assist with 3:08 left. Jadyn Field’s night ended when she picked up her fifth foul 13 seconds later trying to block Emily Miller’s shot from behind.

Then the game seemingly got aggravating.

Miller missed two free throws. Baer blocked Hope Baugh’s shot, resulting in a held ball and Northfield getting possession. Miller missed in the lane, but Baer’s steal and layup made it 36-32 with 2:15 left.

Wilson’s pass to Baugh on the wing led to her stepping out of bounds. Miller was fouled but missed two free throws. Krom rebounded but Ali Field blocked her.

After Northfield gave their last two fouls to give, Miller had a steal and a coast-to-coast lefty finish to make it 36-34 with 54.6 seconds left.

Northfield set up its fullcourt press. Hunter took the inbounds pass and stepped out of bounds along the left baseline in front of the Northfield bench as three Lady Norse players swarmed her.

Krom then threw a cross-lane pass to Haupert, who knocked down a short jumper from the left baseline.

Northfield had rallied to tie the game despite going 1 for 10 from the foul line in the fourth quarter. They went 7 for 22 for the game.

Wilson attacked the paint and collided with Krom, who appeared to be setting up to take a charge. Both players went down. Wilson’s shot hit nothing but backboard. No foul.

Northfield worked the clock down to 10.4 seconds left. Coach Matt Hinds called timeout, but bizarrely, Northfield could not get a shot off when play resumed.

Krom opened the scoring in the overtime with a free throw with 3:35 left.

Hunter threw a pass that appeared to be intended for Baugh behind the arc, but it hit Wilson in the leg. Aubrey Wilson recovered, went up for a shot against Northfield’s Emma Wilson but missed. Aubrey Wilson went down to the floor, and with Northfield holding a brief five-on-four advantage as Aubrey Wilson worked her way back on defense, Baer drilled a 3 from the right of the key to extend the lead to four.

Adalyn Gonzalez split a pair of free throws with 2:53 left, but Krom hit a 10-footer, and Emma Wilson split a pair of free throws with 1:23 left to get the lead to 43-37.

Rochester’s only field goal came in the overtime when freshman Lyla Bowers scored when she retrieved a ball that Baer had stripped from Aubrey Wilson after a Northfield turnover with 58 seconds left, but Gemma Haupert’s driving layup and two more free throws with 8.5 seconds left completed the scoring.

Burrus said the Lady Zs had their best third quarter of the season but “squandered it away in the fourth quarter.”

“To lose a game like that when Northfield’s clanking free throws down the stretch there in the fourth quarter – I mean, they clanked a boatload of them,” Burrus said. “All we’ve got to do is take care of the ball. … The young kids, and we’ve talked about it, you’re going to have to help with the handling there late. (Aubrey) Wilson just can’t stand there with the ball with two minutes (left). They’re going to do everything they can to make her give it up.”

Said Hinds: “There was a stretch there in the third quarter where we didn’t have an answer.”

Both Burrus and Hinds said their teams had practiced only once this week due to inclement weather. Hinds said he needed to “pick and choose” when it pressed because he was not sure it had the “stamina” to do so for a longer period.

“Yesterday was our first practice since the previous Wednesday,” Hinds said. “We had played Thursday (a 64-17 win over Madison-Grant), didn’t practice Friday because school was out, we played Saturday (a 71-38 loss to Whitko), and then Monday and Tuesday, we didn’t practice. So we had one practice in the last week, and honestly, I’m really proud of our girls tonight because I thought we’d be a little more sluggish than we were.”

The game featured a pair of senior-less teams who rely on point guards who are also their team’s leading scorer: Aubrey Wilson for Rochester and Baer for Northfield.

The contrast was in their defense: Northfield played a man-to-man with post player Emma Wilson as a rim protector while Rochester played its customary 2-3 zone.

Northfield jumped out to a 6-0 lead and led the entire first half while holding the Lady Zs to two field goals – a driving banker in the first quarter from Aubrey Wilson and a driving layup from Baugh in the second quarter.

Meanwhile, Baer scored 10 in the first half, including a 3 from the volleyball line at the halftime buzzer that gave Northfield an 18-10 lead.

After turning the ball over five times in the first half, Rochester committed two turnovers in the first 50 seconds of the second half.

Emma Wilson’s jump hook pushed the lead to 10. 

And then, after notching just two field goals in the first 17 minutes, Rochester got buckets on six consecutive possessions. Jadyn Field and Ali Field had three baskets each in the quarter, and Hunter also hit a free throw.

When Jadyn Field hit a free throw with 42.2 seconds left in the quarter, the Northfield lead was down to 27-26 going into the fourth.

After two missed free throws from Miller, Rochester took their first lead at 28-27 when Hunter got a friendly rim on a runner in the lane. Hunter then hit two 3-pointers – one from the left wing and one from just off the right corner – as the lead reached 34-27.

A Krom 10-footer in the lane and an Emma Wilson free throw got the lead back down to four before Krom missed two more free throws.

The missed free throws were becoming a common theme for the Lady Norse.

Northfield hit two late free throws to pull out the JV game 25-23.

Northfield 47, Rochester 39 (OT)

ROCHESTER (39) (10-11, 3-6)

Aubrey Wilson 1 2-2 4, Brailyn Hunter 4 0-0 10, Adalyn Gonzalez 0 1-2 1, Jadyn Field 4 3-5 11, Ali Field 3 3-6 9, Lyla Bowers 1 0-0 2, Hope Baugh 1 0-0 2

TEAM: 14 9-15 39

NORTHFIELD (47) (15-6, 5-4)

Teagan Baer 8 0-0 20, Laney Haupert 0 0-0 0, Gemma Haupert 2 2-2 6, Faith Krom 4 2-6 10, Emma Wilson 2 2-6 6, Brynn Double 0 0-0 0, Ali Copeland 0 1-2 1, Emily Miller 2 0-6 4

TEAM: 18 7-22 47

Three-point field goals:

Rochester 2 (Hunter 2),

Northfield 4 (Baer 4)

Total fouls: Rochester 15, Northfield 16

Fouled out: J. Field (RHS), 2:55, fourth; A. Field (RHS), 1:23, OT

Turnovers: Rochester 15, Northfield 12

Score by quarters

Rochester 6 4 16 10 3 – 39

Northfield 9 9 9 9 11 – 47

JV: Northfield 25, Rochester 23