WHITELAND − It was a hot and electric night for the Franklin girls basketball team in a 72-49 victory over Whiteland on Friday, Nov. 13.
After a slow start, Franklin junior guard Ella McCrary caught fire, burying four 3-pointers in the first quarter en route to scoring 18 on the night.
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At the 4:47 mark, the Lady Cubs led, 10-0, with McCrary leading the way.
“I think the good encouragement from my teammates and them hyping me up when I made a shot really helped me continue to be hot,” McCrary said.
In the span of 1 minute and 30 seconds, both the Warriors (2-2) and the Cubs (3-1) combined for five threes, trading buckets.
“Our game plans [are] generally the same,” Franklin coach Brian Klem said. “We try to take open shots and make easy passes … early, it seemed like they were threes, and then we got some twos later.”
The hot streaks ended with 3:18 left in the first quarter and the Lady Cubs leading, 16-11.
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Once the streak ended, so did the offense, the quarter ending on a huge block by Franklin’s Addi King as Cubs took a 21-12 lead.
The second quarter started with a statement from one of Indiana’s rising stars, freshman Abby Boner, who had two huge steals to lead Whiteland on a 12-0 run.
Boner finished with 9 points, well below her 19.0 average as Franklin forged a 34-29 halftime lead.
Then Franklin opened the third quarter scoring 11 straight points to extend its lead to 45-29, and senior Izzy Stillabower hit a huge three to push the lead to 50-33 with 3:16 left in the third quarter.
Although the third quarter ended with Whiteland trailing, 54-39, it came out firing on all cylinders in the fourth quarter. A minute in, junior Aurora Lightfoot drained a three to cut the lead to 12.
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The Warriors then pressed full court, forcing a turnover and turning it into a quick layup to cut their deficit to 54-44 and forcing Klem to call a timeout.
“We’re just working on staying consistent throughout the game [and] we’re just trying to put a whole game together with consistent effort,” Klem said. “And I think for the most part, we did it; we had a few lapses where they came back on us a little bit, but I’m happy overall with it.”
Fortunately for Klem, King took over, scoring 7 points in the last three minutes of the game.
“I definitely wanted to look for my shot, but getting my teammates open and getting the ball up the court was my goal,” King said.
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Three-pointers from Stillabower and junior Aleah Singleton put Franklin up, 63-46.
The two teams will play Nov. 17 in the Johnson County Tournament.
“We play them again on Tuesday, so we wanted to show them that they got something to worry about on Tuesday and that we’re coming out with great intensity, great defense and we’re not letting them win this game,” McCrary said.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Red-hot Franklin shuts down Whiteland in girls basketball
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