Girls basketball: Princeton beats L-P, sets school record for wins

PRINCETON — Just 1:50 into the game, Princeton girls basketball coach Darcy Kepner called timeout after La Salle-Peru had scored the first seven points.

“(We talked about) not getting too worked up,” Kepner said. “We knew they were a good team and they were going to come out hot. Basketball is a game of runs, so we just had to keep our composure and fight back.”

The Tigresses also made a defensive adjustment, going back to their bread and butter 1-3-1 press after starting the game in a half-court trap.

“No. 4 (Brooklyn Ficek) is really good at handling the basketball, so our strategy coming in was kind of to have a softer trap against her,” Kepner said. “We decided to get up and challenge more and it worked for us.”

Princeton turned that seven-point deficit into a three-point lead by the end of the first quarter, built a lead of as many as 12 points and held off a furious L-P rally to win 52-49 on Saturday.

With the win, the Tigresses set a new school record for wins in a season with 25, breaking the old mark of 24 set by the 2006-07 sectional championship team.

“I thought we played great,” Princeton senior Olivia Gartin said. “We were coming off a game against IVC where we kind of struggled a little bit (in a 61-58 win). We came into this game knowing that this would be our 25th win, which is breaking a school record for most wins in a season, so we gave it our all.

“It means a lot (to set the record). Girls basketball often gets overlooked, so it’s definitely a huge step in our program to make a name for ourselves, break records and write history.”

Miyah Fox got the Tigresses (25-3) on the board with a free throw out of the timeout and Princeton eventually took the lead on back-to-back layups by Keighley Davis.

The Tigresses forced 11 turnovers and limited the Cavaliers (15-13) to four points in the second quarter as Princeton extended its lead to 21-14 by halftime.

Fox scored on an assist from Gartin and Gartin drained a 3-pointer to push Princeton’s lead to 26-14 early in the third quarter.

L-P twice cut its deficit to six in the third, but Princeton responded each time — once on a jumper by Davis and the second time on a 3-pointer by Gartin and a three-point play by Fox.

“It was just keeping composure,” Kepner said on how Princeton responded. “I think our seniors stepped up big. Miyah Fox had a couple three-point plays. We just have kids we can go to who can give us big baskets at certain points.”

Gartin also buried two key 3-pointers and scored 10 of her team-high 18 points in the fourth quarter.

“It’s been hit or miss between games whether I’m on or I’m not,” Gartin said. “I guess today it was just one of those days where I was on shooting 3s.”

Princeton led 43-31 with 4 minutes left before L-P went on a 6-0 run with two buckets by Ficek and a basket by Bailey Pode on an assist from Ficek to cut the deficit to 43-37.

Gartin hit a 3 and sank two free throws to give Princeton some cushion, but Pode scored again before Ficek scored seven straight L-P points with a 3-pointer cutting the deficit to 50-46 with 35.4 seconds left.

Mariah Hobson hit a pair of free throws with 23.2 seconds left for a six-point lead before Jasmine Garman hit a 3 with 5 seconds left.

Ficek scored a game-high 21 points with 16 coming in the second half, including 14 in the fourth quarter.

“We did not play well,” L-P coach Adam Spencer said. “We didn’t handle the pressure. We played well for two minutes in the first half then we had 14 minutes that were back. We played OK for a couple minutes in the second half. We had flashes we were very good and we had flashes where it looked like we never looked at a board or practiced against an odd-man front or an even-man front or done a pass fake.

“This was very frustrating. We didn’t have any composure. We didn’t make any free throws. We didn’t make any bunnies. We tried to throw it through girls. Princeton plays hard. They mix up the defenses. Our guards need to recognize that. It was very frustrating to play poorly and be so close because if we would have done one thing differently each quarter, we could have won.”