Lady Bulldogs and Lady Twisters earn sectional wins
PHOTO COURTESY OF RICH FOWLER
Batesville and Oldenburg Academy entered the girls basketball postseason as contenders in each of their respective brackets and both schools played the part on Tuesday in the opening round of the IHSAA Girls Basketball State Tournament.
The Lady Bulldogs drilled Franklin County 53-31 in the opening round of Class 3A Sectional 29 at Lawrenceburg while Class A No. 8 Oldenburg Academy finally pulled away from Rising Sun late by a 62-42 final score at Hauser in Class A Sectional 60.
Batesville had only beaten Franklin County (11-12) 49-43 on December 5 but two months later the blue and white never even let the Lady Wildcats enjoy the sectional experience. The Lady Bulldogs sizzled from the get-go on both ends of the floor and led 17-0 in the first quarter and that lead jumped to 27-6 by halftime. A 41-18 score after three quarters only added to the blowout status which finally came to its end after 32 minutes.
Sophie Gesell led all scorers as the Batesville senior dropped 18 points and teammate Maddie Haskamp was in double figures with 16 points. Molly Gesell added seven points to round out top scorers for the Lady Bulldogs.
Ruby Singer and Madesyn Sunderhaus each scored eight points for Franklin County.
Batesville (16-8) faces Jennings County (14-7) on Friday night in the semifinal round at 6 p.m. The winner will meet either No. 1 Greensburg (22-0) or South Dearborn (6-16) in Saturday’s championship game at 7 p.m.
Greensburg used a late push to win 55-39 over Lawrenceburg in the second opening round game on Tuesday night.
Over at Hauser inside Class A Sectional 60, Rising Sun (5-18) crept up on the ranked Lady Twisters and trailed just 43-38 heading into the fourth quarter but Oldenburg regained its composure and launched a 19-4 run in the final eight minutes to thwart any thoughts of an upset bid.
Oldenburg had led 15-5 at the first stop and the margin stood at 31-19 by halftime. Statistics from the game were not provided by time of print.
The Lady Twisters (19-4) faces Milan (3-17) in the Class A Sectional 60 semifinals on Friday night.
