By Greg Keim
On a night when their leading scorer — 5-10 junior Emily Peppers-VanNamee — was saddled with foul trouble, other youngsters on the Northridge High School girls basketball team picked up the slack.
Five-nine freshman Haley Schrock netted 15 points and 5-6 junior Sydney Sample 14 as the Raiders defeated the Plymouth Pilgrims, 44-34, in Northern Lakes Conference action Thursday at NHS in Middlebury.
Peppers-VanNamee averages 12.4 points per game, but we limited to four in the contest.
“I have been saying all year we have good players who no one knows about because they are so young,” Northridge coach Doug Springer said.
The Raiders started three juniors and two freshmen.
“The freshmen are no longer freshmen,” Springer added.
Northridge (13-5, 4-2 NLC) hosts Fairfield Tuesday and Plymouth (9-10, 2-4) entertains Goshen next Thursday.
The win puts Northridge in a tie with Elkhart Memorial for third place in the NLC behind Warsaw (5-1) and NorthWood (4-1).
The Raiders were coming off a 45-41 upset of No. 10-ranked Class 4A Memorial last Friday.
Northridge showed no signs of resting on their laurels, opening a 9-0 lead by 1:45 of the period. The Raiders went on to lead 13-2 at quarter’s end.
“I was worried about this game,” Springer said. “The Memorial win is probably the biggest one in school history and you never know how teenagers are going to react after something like that. The first quarter set the tone for the rest of the game.”
Plymouth coach Dave Cox said, “Coach Springer is doing a great job here. Every possession in this game was magnified, because of the way the teams were playing defense.”
The second quarter was almost the exact opposite of the first for the Raiders. Plymouth turned up the pressure on defense and forced 10 Northridge turnovers. That helped the Pilgrims outscore the Raiders 10-3 and trim the lead to four points (16-12) by halftime.
“We started turning the ball over on unforced errors,” Springer said. “All year long we have been talking about putting a value on possession of the ball.”
The Raiders took better care of the ball in the second half, turning it over just once in the third period and four times in the fourth.
The Pilgrims kept battling back in the third and tied the score 20-20 on a basket by 5-8 junior Chelsea Thoden at 3:22.
On Northridge’s next possession Sample, who was celebrating her 17th birthday, drilled a 3-pointer giving her team a 23-20 advantage at 3:03.
“That was a huge ‘3’ by Sample,” Springer said. “I told her I hope it’s her birthday every day. She draws the defensive assignment on the opposing team’s best player and she goes out and hits a huge shot like that on top of it.”
Six-one junior Marisa Green’s basket for Plymouth made the score 23-22, but Northridge stretched the lead back to 27-22 by 1:12 of the period. Haley Schrock had a basket at 1:31 and 5-5 sophomore Cedes Clifford one following a steal at 1:12.
Plymouth baskets by 5-11 freshman Ariel Redinger and 5-8 junior Haley Smart knotted the score 30-30 with 4:06 remaining.
Haley Schrock gave the Raiders the lead for good with a basket at 3:51 and another trey by Sample at 3:17 made it 35-30.
Plymouth had one more run and pulled to within one point (35-34) at 1:21.
A three-point play by Haley Schrock at 1:07 combined with free throws by Sample at 1:17 and :42 and by 5-8 freshman Madison Schrock at :20 sealed the victory.
Northridge was 7-of-7 from the free-throw line over the final 1:07 and 14-of-19 (73.7 percent) for the game.
“Earlier in the season we were shooting 41 percent as a team from the line,” Springer said. “Going into this game we were up to 63. We have put a lot of time in practice working on free throws. We put the girls in situations where you have to hit them or there are consequences. It seems to be paying off.”
