Kenedi bradley leads Trojans past merrillville in sectional semi, scores 23

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

The opening tip amounted to the gates of a thoroughbred race flying open for Chesterton girls basketball starters Kenedi Bradley, Novea Brandon, Liv Roach, Allison Van Kley and Isabelle Connors.

By the time the first quarter buzzer sounded and the girls took a quick seat to catch their breaths, the Trojans were on a pace to score 100 points against Merrillville in the sectional semifinal.

They held on and weathered some shaky late moments to avenge a regular-season loss, and more importantly, advance to the sectional championship game on their home floor, a 6 p.m. tipoff today against heavily favored Valparaiso.

Chesterton defeated the Pirates, 58-54, after taking a 25-15 lead at the end of the first quarter. It grew to 38-27 at the half and 51-37 at the end of the three quarters before things grew interesting.

“I think we knew we had it in us. It’s just a matter of if we were going to make it happen,” Connors said. “We had a lot of talks before the game on how to make that happen and I think we did a really good job with it.”

Echoed Kenedi Bradley: “I feel like we did everything in the game that we had been doing the past few weeks in practice. Smart passing, coming to the ball, stuff like that helped us win that game.”

Merrillville, which brings an abundance of quickness, muscle and shooting to every contest, won the DAC game, also at Chesterton, 51-40

Early in this one, Chesterton beat the Pirates at their own game, turned up the defensive pressure, forced multiple turnovers and turned them into points with some nifty, well-timed passes in transition.

It also didn’t hurt that the Trojans shot lights-out in the first quarter. Kenedi Bradley made two 3-pointers and Novea Brandon one. Roach and Bradley not only combined for nifty give-and-go buckets, they combined for 4 of 4 from the line in the opening eight minutes.

Bradley showed a big crowd how much she has matured in her three seasons as her school’s best basketball player. She’s now blends the wisdom and patience that experience brings with outrageous speed and quickness, agility and desire.

Bradley scored 12 of her game-high 23 points in the first quarter and kept things calm under pressure when the night took a trip on the wild wild side late. She also buried a trio of 3-pointers, weaved through traffic to finish tough drives, made 4 of 6 free throws, and slapped the ball loose from Merrilville star Kylie Wells (14 points) under the hoop with 4.2 seconds remaining, one of her many disruptive defensive plays.

Pirates sophomore Malika Jenkins, who mixes serious quickness with a deep 3-poiont shooting range, did everything she could to rally her team, scoring eight of her 20 points in the fourth quarter. But just when it looked as though Chesterton was going to let the lead slip away, someone delivered a big play. Early in the third quarter, that someone was Hailey Geiser, who furnished senior calm and confidence at a moment it was so badly needed. When the lead quickly shrunk from 11 points to six, Geiser pumped it right back up to 11 with a 3-pointer, followed by another bucket.

Huge points. H-U-G-E!

A junior, Roach also doesn’t appear to let big moments faze her. Her bigger scoring output than is typical was complemented by her typical dose of pressure defense that rattles opponents into making mistakes.

“Liv, I love Liv,” said a smiling Connors, a big ice pack on her shoulder, easing the pain she played through late in a game in which she battled so hard on the boards right through the painful final possession before the buzzer fell in her ears in such a sweet melody it surely must have helped soothed the discomfort. “You wouldn’t expect it of her sometimes. You don’t think she’s going to sprint to the ball, and she just gets there. She’s very quick, smart, she makes passes happen. All-around, she can do everything.”

Added Bradley: “Liv’s very aggressive, one of our best defenders.”

In the week leading up to the sectional, the Trojans spent a lot of time dissecting the Jan. 10 DAC home loss to Merrillville, one in which they made 29 turnovers.

“We had to have our shots fall and we needed to fix our passing,” Connors said. “Our passing wasn’t perfect tonight, but I think we pulled it together nicely. Losing how we did last time, we got to study what we did wrong and we got to go back and make that better for this game, and I don’t think they expected us to do that.”

Wanting to shorten the game, Wilson had her players slow down the pace midway through the final period, which opens a team up to risking a slowdown amounting to a virtual stop.

“That’s the hard part. You don’t want to play not to lose, but you don’t want to shoot yourself out of the game either and at the end I felt like we were kind of starting to do that,” Wilson said. “We just needed to try to work the clock, let them foul us and not turn the ball over. Unfortunately, we turned the ball over a little bit, but this time of year, you’ve just got to do what you’ve got to do to get to the next game. If you win by one point, it’s all that matters.”

Late turnovers and the untimely fouling of a 3-point shooter put the outcome in jeopardy, but a Chesterton player, often Bradley, forever was there to keep the momentum from gaining too much steam. That’s what happens on tightly bonded teams, and the Trojans certainly fit that description. They play for each other and they play hard, even on nights when they don’t always keep the floor as tidy as their mothers might like.

“It’s a big environment and we’ve got some kids who never had been involved in this, and that’s a little intimidating. It really is,” Wilson said. “But I thought our older girls with experience held everyone together. Izzy had some huge boards at the end.”

The end came. The combatants watched Valparaiso dominate Portage and had some pizza. And then the coaches got to work on forming a game plan for the mighty Vikings.