Pizzuto hits 2 late treys, but Trinity Greenlawn hangs on to beat Argos

BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS

Sports Editor, RTC

HAMLET — Argos senior guard-forward Lexi Gibson rose up for a 3-point shot in the final minute of her team’s game against Trinity Greenlawn Wednesday in a Class 1A, Sectional 51 quarterfinal at Oregon-Davis.

Her team was down 23-21. If it went in, it would give her team their first lead of the game and a chance to avenge a regular season loss to the Lady Titans and give her and teammates Ellie Bollenbacher and Grace Thomas one more game in their careers.

The shot was just off, and Trinity Greenlawn’s Madonna Drake rebounded.

After Charis Balsbaugh split a pair of free throws, Argos had a chance to tie on a Makenzie Smith 3-point try, but that missed, and Balsbaugh made an acrobatic save to keep the ball inbounds.

Abby Kottkamp’s two free throws sealed Trinity Greenlawn’s 26-22 win.

Trinity Greenlawn improved to 12-8 and earned a meeting with No. 4 Elkhart Christian in the semifinals at 8 p.m. Eastern Friday. Elkhart Christian avenged a regular season loss to North Judson with a 59-31 win in Wednesday’s other quarterfinal.

Argos lost their seventh straight game and finished 2-21.

Balsbaugh led Trinity Greenlawn with seven points, and Audrey Lee finished with six points and 13 rebounds.

Leah Pizzuto hit a pair of 3-pointers in the second half and finished with six points. Gibson had five, Ellie Bollenbacher had four, Smith and Kinzlee Kelly had three each, and Haley Shafer had one.

Bollenbacher is Argos’ leading scorer and rebounder, but she fouled out with 43.0 seconds left after officials called her for running over a screen, which came moments after Gibson’s missed 3.

Like their regular season meeting – a 25-23 Trinity Greenlawn win in South Bend Nov. 20 – it was a defensive struggle between Trinity Greenlawn’s 1-2-2 zone and Argos’ defense, which started out as a 2-2-1 halfcourt zone but later morphed into a man-to-man.

The 1-2-2 made it hard for Argos to get the ball from one side of the court to the other, according to Argos coach Nick Medich.

“I think our spacing helped their situation,” Medich said. “One of the things we had a hard time with, and what I think was because of the size difference. We couldn’t skip the ball across that zone. If you can’t skip the ball, and there are so many girls on our side with the ball, we’ve got nowhere to go. So we tried to figure out how we’re going to adjust to get the ball back around to the other side.”

Gibson and Smith hit 3s in the first quarter as Argos forged a 6-6 tie, but the Lady Titans’ 8-0 run over the first 2:55 of the second quarter kept them ahead for good.

The run included a layup by Drake, a layup by Kottkamp, a runner in the lane from Balsbaugh and an acrobatic scoop shot at the rim from Balsbaugh.

Medich called timeout, and the rock fight continued: Trinity Greenlawn went nine minutes without a field goal.

Bollenbacher, the last remaining player who received significant playing time on Argos’ 2023 sectional championship team, scored on a putback in the second quarter and on a steal and nifty coast to coast finish off the glass in the third quarter to make it 15-10.

But a Charis Gabrielse 17-footer and a Lee putback pushed the lead back to nine.

Argos had another surge. Pizzuto drilled a 3, and Kinzlee Kelly scored a second-chance bucket after a Smith offensive rebound and assist.

A Paetra Bartek putback of her own miss kept the Argos deficit at 21-15 going into the fourth.

Then neither team had a field goal for the first 5:18 of the fourth until a Lee pullup 12-footer made it 23-16.

But Pizzuto knocked down another triple. Trinity Greenlawn’s Tegan Sagarsee dribbled off her leg out of bounds, and Gibson hit a 15-foot pullup off the dribble, and Argos was within two with 1:31 left.

“I’ve been telling her all year, ‘Go to the basket. Go to the basket,’” Medich said of Gibson. “She’s really fast. She’s really tough. … We looked at the stats from last year. We looked at the number of 3-point shots. We noticed that we this year’s team brought 11 made 3-pointers from last year. So of the players that returned … I’ve been telling these girls you have to shoot. Talk about some pressure. They’re not used to it. We never discouraged them from being aggressive and shooting. And the way I think Lexi did towards the end, I’m happy with the way she grew. She may not have gotten the results she wanted, but from a basketball standpoint, I think she learned the basketball game, and I had fun watching her play.”

Argos pressed fullcourt. Trinity Greenlawn tried to pass over the top of it, but Balsbaugh’s pass intended for Drake deflected off her leg out of bounds.

Now Argos had a chance to tie the game or even take the lead.

Medich said he apologized to the seniors after the game for the “lack of consistency” within the program.

“I give the girls credit,” Medich said of seniors Gibson, Bollenbacher and Thomas, who missed the game due to a right knee injury. “They had three coaches in four years. But I’ll say as far as I know, they kept their heads up. They stuck through it. They didn’t quit. I think they encouraged the other girls and accepted what we did. They might not have always liked it, but I didn’t get anything from them that made me question their loyalty to the program or Argos schools.”

Trinity Greenlawn 26, Argos 22

TRINITY GREENLAWN (26) (12-8)

Charis Balsbaugh 3 1-2 7, Charis Gabrielse 2 0-0 4, Madonna Drake 1 0-0 2, Abby Kottkamp 1 2-4 4, Audrey Lee 3 0-0 6, Tegan Sagarsee 0 1-2 1, Paetra Bartek 1 0-0 2, Maureen Skendzel 0 0-0 0

TEAM: 11 4-8 26

ARGOS (22) (2-21)

Leah Pizzuto 2 0-0 6, Lexi Gibson 2 0-4 5, Makenzie Smith 1 0-0 3, Haley Shafer 0 1-2 1, Ellie Bollenbacher 2 0-0 4, Peytyn Willis 0 0-0 0, Alleigh VanDerWeele 0 0-0 0, Kinzlee Kelly 1 1-2 3

TEAM: 8 2-8 22

Three-point field goals:

Trinity Greenlawn 0,

Argos 4 (Pizzuto 2, Smith, Gibson)

Total fouls: Trinity Greenlawn 12, Argos 14

Fouled out: Bollenbacher (ARG), :43.0, fourth; Drake (TG), :08.8, fourth

Turnovers: Trinity Greenlawn 25, Argos 21

Score by quarters

Trinity Greenlawn 6 9 6 5 – 26

Argos 6 2 7 7 – 22

Elkhart Christian 59, North Judson 31

Freshman reserve Mia Hibbard scored 16 points, and Lily Maxwell and Kyla Yordy added 14 each in Elkhart Christian’s rout of North Judson.

Ivy Clapsaddle added 10 for the Lady Eagles, who improved to 19-4.

Hibbard hit buzzer-beating 3-pointers at the end of the first and third quarters, and Yordy drilled a 3 at the halftime buzzer.

Elkhart Christian won despite making just 7 of 19 free throws.

But they also forced 20 North Judson turnovers and held North Judson 1,000-point scorer Cailyn Tunis without a field goal over the final three quarters. As a team, North Judson only had one field goal in the third quarter as a 16-point halftime lead ballooned to 47-23.

Tunis scored a game-high 16 when North Judson won 45-37 at Elkhart Christian Dec. 2.

Shiloh DeBoard led North Judson (15-8) with 19 points before fouling out with 2:35 left. Teammate Avaree Johnston fouled out on an intentional foul with 1:19 left.

Elkhart Christian eliminated North Judson from the sectional for the second straight year. North Judson has not won a sectional since the Lilliann Frasure-led Lady Jays made it to semistate in 2021.

Elkhart Christian 59, North Judson 31 

NORTH JUDSON (31) (15-8)

Shiloh DeBoard 7 4-5 19, Cailyn Tunis 1 3-4 6, Avaree Johnston 1 0-0 3, Macy Morrow 0 2-4 2, Annabell Kennedy 0 1-2 1, Amelia Chaffins 0 0-0 0, Ella Chambers 0 0-0 0, Grace Craig 0 0-0 0, Kaia Burkett 0 0-0 0, Braelyn Lewandowski 0 0-0 0, Mallie Sievers 0 0-0 0, Charlie Boyd 0 0-0 0

TEAM: 9 10-15 31

ELKHART CHRISTIAN (59) (19-4)

Lily Maxwell 6 2-4 14, Ivy Clapsaddle 5 0-3 10, Kyla Yordy 5 3-8 14, Justine Yordy 1 0-0 3, Sydni Haviland 1 0-0 2, Myla Hanlon 0 2-2 2, Sheridan Maxwell 0 0-0 0, Alora Nafziger 0 0-0 0, Karagan Tyran 0 0-0 0, Saghan Schlabach 0 0-0 0, Mia Hibbard 5 0-2 14

TEAM: 23 7-19 59

Three-point field goals:

North Judson 3 (DeBoard, Tunis, Johnston),

Elkhart Christian 6 (Hibbard 4, K. Yordy, J. Yordy)

Total fouls: North Judson 17, Elkhart Christian 20

Fouled out: DeBoard (NJSP), 2:35, fourth; Johnston (NJSP), 1:19, fourth

Turnovers: North Judson 20, Elkhart Christian 14

Score by quarters

North Judson 7 10 6 8 – 31

Elkhart Christian 16 17 14 12 – 59