Kramer, slow start end Patriots' season (02/23/04)

PERU — It was a second straight trip to the Peru regional for the Patriots Saturday. They turned in a second straight respectable effort in the round of 16.

Still, it left them short of where they wanted to be.

The Jay County girls basketball team stayed close, but not close enough as the third-ranked Tippecanoe Valley Vikings handed them a season-ending 58-50 loss.

The Patriots stumbled in the opening minutes and Viking junior Kara Kramer never let them close again as she finished with 33 points.

“We had mistakes, but they don’t think they left anything out there,” said Jay County coach Lea Selvey. “I think they gave everything they had.”

Tippecanoe Valley (21-3) went on to drop the regional championship to the No. 4 Fort Wayne Bishop Luers Knights 57-46. Bishop Luers reached the finals by the same score, topping NorthWood 57-46 in the other regional semifinal.

Jay County (14-9) fell behind early and never truly recovered.

The Patriots turned the ball over on eight of their first 10 possessions in the first 4:04 of the contest. They managed to score the two times they did shoot, but the constant miscues allowed Tippecanoe Valley a 9-0 run for a 16-5 early lead.

Both teams turned the ball over plenty in the final 28 minutes of the game — Jay County finished with 26 turnovers while the Vikings had 18 — and the 11-point gap stayed nearly the same. The Patriots never trailed by more than 15 points, and never cut the deficit to fewer than the final margin of eight after the first quarter.

“They’re to be commended because they just didn’t give in,” said Selvey of his players. “It seemed like every time we got a run they’d be really patient and kick it out to Kramer and she’d hit a three.”

On the other hand, Tippecanoe Valley coach Gary Teel said he thought his team missed some chances to send the game in the other direction. He said his team took some shots after turnovers too quickly, leaving the door open for Jay County to stay close.

“We needed to do a little better job with time and score,” said Teel. “Our kids like to play an up tempo type of game, and sometimes it’s hard to get out it.”

Tippecanoe Valley’s Indiana All-Star candidate Rebekah Parker was quiet for much of the game after scoring six points in the first four minutes. She scored seven more of her 18 points in the final period, but was not heard from much in between as she finished just 5-of-13 from the field.

But, Kramer did more than enough to take care of business.

The junior took over the game in the second period, as if she hadn’t already done enough in the first. She scored 12 of her team’s 14 points in the second quarter after hitting for 10 in the first.

Her 22 points matched what the entire Jay County team did before the intermission.

When the Tippecanoe Valley advantage slipped to eight points in the third quarter, Kramer tossed in back-to-back 3-pointers to buoy the lead. She finished her scoring with another long ball to open the fourth quarter before turning the game over to Parker.

Kramer finished 5-of-7 from behind the arc in the contest and was also near-perfect as she hit 8-of-9 free throws. She matched Parker with a team-high five rebounds, and had one assist and one block.

“She’s a player,” said Selvey of Kramer. “She had a career game and she hit the shots. (Five of seven) from three is phenomenal. They worked their offense and found her open and she came through.”

Jay County’s game-plan going in was to try to limit Parker. For the most part they did that well, only to have Kramer make them pay time and time again.

“It just shows we have a lot of quality players on our team,” said Teel, although Kramer and Parker combined for all but seven Tippecanoe Valley points. “We’ve had six different players lead us in scoring this year. When people key on (Parker) other kids have been able to step up.”

Lindsay Friddle led the Patriots with 14 points and was a key to keeping them in the game. She led their best outside shooting effort of the season by hitting 4-of-6 3-pointers as the team finished 7-of-16 (44 percent) from downtown.

Felisha Parr was next with 12 points. Jamie Bruggeman and Sarah Dirksen each had seven, and Lisa Weitzel and Renae Laux added five apiece. Bruggeman notched a game-high five assists.

Jay County’s rebounding numbers were indicative of the outstanding effort. After struggling to outwork anyone on the glass over the last 15 games the Patriots grabbed a 31-23 advantage Saturday with five different players grabbing at least four rebounds.

Bruggeman, Dirksen and Laux shared the team-best number with six apiece, and Weitzel and Parr each added four.

“I’m very proud of them,” said Selvey. “I felt like they improved throughout the year. I think they came together as a team.”[[In-content Ad]]