Strycker scores 20 again, but Tri-County tops Pioneer for sectional title
- Val T.
- Feb 13
- 4 min read
Updated: Feb 15
BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS
Sports Editor, RTC
FRANCESVILLE — For the third straight sectional game, Pioneer girls basketball player Makenna Strycker scored 20 points, but for the first time, the opponent had an answer.
The answer was Tri-County’s Sara Zarse, who scored a game-high 25 while also guarding Strycker on the defensive end, and it led to a 53-27 Lady Cavalier win and their second sectional title in three years in the Class 1A, Sectional 50 final at West Central Monday.
Hannah Arvin added 11 points.
No. 5 Tri-County improved to 22-2 and will meet top-ranked Marquette Catholic (21-4) in a regional at Winamac at 1 p.m. Saturday.
Tri-County, whose one-point loss to Caston in last year’s final was their only loss in a sectional game in the last three years, won their three sectional games this time by an average margin of 33 points per game. They also beat Pioneer 62-18 in their regular season meeting Nov. 9.
Pioneer finished 12-13. They doubled their win total from last year. They have not won a sectional since their state title-winning season of 2021.
“Obviously, offensively, we knew it would be a struggle,” Pioneer coach David McWherter said. “They’re so long, lanky and athletic and move really well. We knew their defense was going to give us trouble in trying to score and get some easy buckets and trying to get some open looks on the perimeter and trying to get some drives to the basket.
“What we wanted to do was hang our hat on our defense and make sure we gave ourselves an opportunity to hang in the game with them because they’re a very tough team, a team that took it to us earlier in the year obviously.”
Mia McKaig and Michelle Harding added three points for Pioneer. Julia McGrew had one.
Strycker; Harding; McGrew; forward Kynzie Hathaway; and Rachel Harding, Michelle’s twin sister who was out with an ankle injury, will all graduate.
Tri-County opened the game with a 13-2 run that bled into the second quarter and never trailed.
It started with a 17-foot floater from the 5-10 Arvin and a layup after a backcourt steal. Strycker knocked down a midrange jumper from the baseline, but a Zarse 3-point play and transition baskets from Grace Luck and Zarse made it 11-2 after one quarter.
Tri-County coach Missi Tyler had her team in a 2-3 zone but switched to a man-to-man before the midway point of the first quarter. Her instructions to her team focused on closing out against shooters like Strycker and McKaig.
Zarse had the matchup on Strycker, whose previous 20-point efforts came in wins over Caston (34-13) and North White (38-27).
“And to play the full game and bring that kind of defense and that kind of intensity,” Tyler said of Zarse. “She definitely is a leader, and she has stepped up so much this year, just by leading her teammates and being that vocal leader and stepping up when we need her to step up. She takes the best defensive assignments, and she’s still able to put up 25.”
Strycker scored Pioneer’s first nine points and then fed Michelle Harding, who caught a bullet dropoff pass from Strycker and then contorted her body to drop in a layup with 10 seconds left in the half to cut the margin to 12 at halftime.
Strycker split a pair of free throws with 7:35 left in the third quarter to get Pioneer within 23-12, but that was as close as it got in the second half.
Arvin’s 3-point play got the lead to 14. Strycker would later hit a 3 to make it 27-15, but Zarse beat the Pioneer 2-3 zone down for a transition layup after a McKaig missed 3 to make it 29-15.
A Zarse 3-point play off a back cut made it 32-16.
Another Zarse transition bucket preceded the coup de grace – a banked-in 23-footer for 3 at the buzzer to make it 39-18. Zarse outscored the entire Pioneer team 10-7 in the quarter, and the lead never got under 20 again.
“I thought we played extremely hard though,” McWherter said. “We didn’t give up. We didn’t necessarily roll over. Yeah, I’m disappointed in the end result, but I can’t be disappointed in the girls in how hard they’ve worked all year long.”
Tyler called Strycker “scrappy” and “feisty” and complimented Pioneer on their improvement from their previous meeting three months earlier.
“They’re a totally different team, and I kind of followed them up until now,” Tyler said. “And I saw that they lost their first six, and then they kind of went on a 10-1 run, I think. So I knew they were going to be improved, and they started playing well together and getting fundamentally sound. So that’s important, and they’ve had a good season.”
The game was originally scheduled for Saturday but was postponed to Monday due to inclement weather.
Makenna Strycker Kynzie Hathaway Julia McGrew Michelle Harding Rachel Harding
Tri-County 53, Pioneer 27
TRI-COUNTY (53) (22-2)
Elyzabeth Bahler 0 2-2 2, Sara Zarse 10 2-4 25, Grace Luck 1 0-0 2, Madalynn Iseminger 0 3-4 3, Hannah Arvin 4 3-5 11, Gracie Scheitlin 0 0-0 0, Madysen Spencer 2 0-0 5, Ella Culp 1 0-0 2, Grace Tyler 1 1-2 3
TEAM: 19 11-17 53
PIONEER (27) (12-13)
Makenna Strycker 6 6-10 20, Mia McKaig 1 0-2 3, Julia McGrew 0 1-2 1, Kynzie Hathaway 0 0-0 0, Hannah Zeigler 0 0-0 0, Avery Haselby 0 0-0 0, Mya Ott 0 0-0 0, Madyson Shaffer 0 0-0 0, Michelle Harding 1 1-2 3, Leah Zeigler 0 0-0 0
TEAM: 8 8-16 27
Three-point field goals:
Tri-County 4 (Zarse 3, Spencer),
Pioneer 3 (Strycker 2, McKaig)
Total fouls: Tri-County 10, Pioneer 16
Turnovers: Tri-County 17, Pioneer 14
Score by quarters
Tri-County 11 12 16 14 – 53
Pioneer 2 9 7 9 – 27
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