Saturday, March 04, 2000
Rising Sun girls play for Indiana title
BY JEFF CARLTON
The Cincinnati Enquirer
A one-point loss kept the Rising Sun girls basketball team out of the Indiana state championship game in 1998.
Another one-point loss in the 1999 state semifinals sent the team home two wins shy of a state title.
“It ripped our hearts out,” said guard Jennifer Brock. “But that's what made us do it this year.”
What Rising Sun did was rid itself of the semifinal jinx, beating White River Valley last weekend for the right to play in today's Class A championship game against Triton. Tipoff is 10:30 a.m. at Hinkle Fieldhouse on the campus of Butler University in Indianapolis.
“All we had to do was put the scores of those two semifinal losses on the wall, and that's all the motivation these girls needed,” said Rising Sun assistant coach Mike Seipel.
The Shiners (25-2) entered the season as the top-ranked team in Indiana. A pair of losses dropped them to No.4, where they have been ranked for much of the season.
The semifinal win against White River Valley, the No.1 team in the state, makes Rising Sun the favorite in the championship game. Triton is ranked No.12.
Rising Sun is led by Brock and her twin sister, Jessica, who lines up at guard and holds the school's all-time career scoring record for boys or girls with 1,698 points.
The Brocks, along with fellow 6-footer Erin Turner, spark the Shiners defensively. The team uses an aggressive matchup zone, occasionally mixing it up with a full-court press.
“We start looking pretty tall on the press when (Turner and the Brocks) start waving their arms in the air,” Seipel said. “When you get three 6-footers at a school this size (313 students), it's pretty rare.”
Opponents often try to thwart the fast-paced Shiners by slowing down the game, sometimes going into a complete stall. It does limit Rising Sun's fast-break points, until the team starts trapping at midcourt and pressing whenever possible.
“We take the game to them,” Seipel said. “We make sure to go out there and make them play.”
The school held two pep rallies for the team Thursday, one for students and one open to the community. But even with this stylish send-off, the players can't help but feel nervous about a championship game that has been three years in the making.
“Our whole town's been out supporting us,” Jennifer Brock said. “Even so, everybody has butterflies.”
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