Columbus East’s Madelyn Poe, left, passes the ball after teammate Caroline Frost sets a screen on Columbus North’s Ava Wilson, center, during the annual crosstown rivalry game at Columbus North High School in Columbus, Ind., Thursday, Dec. 14, 2023.
Mike Wolanin | The Republic
Madelyn Poe and Caroline Frost had never played in a big rivalry basketball game, and Kaitlyn Phillips had never been a head coach in one.
But Thursday night, playing and coaching before the biggest crowd of their lives, seniors Poe and Frost came up huge for Columbus East, and Phillips pushed all the right buttons late in regulation and overtime to give the Olympians a 43-38 victory at Columbus North.
“This is my first rivalry game, and it was so much fun,” Poe said. “I’m so glad to be a part of it. I’m so happy that we could do this for our fans and for each other.”
Poe, a transfer from Hauser, scored a game-high 16 points, none bigger than a game-tying 3-pointer with 47 seconds left in regulation. She then scored five of East’s nine points in the overtime.
Frost, who was one of the Olympians’ top volleyball players and is playing high school basketball for the first time, scored 12 of her 15 points in the fourth quarter and overtime, She also led the Olympians with eight rebounds.
“Growing up, I came to all my siblings’ North-East games, so I know what the amount of people are, but playing it it is so much different,” Frost said. “It was just a wild game.”
Meanwhile, Jenna Guse was a stalwart defensively. Guse and fellow senior Victoria Cuhadar were instrumental in holding the Bull Dogs’ leading scorer, Kaylie Harmon, to four points.
“I knew that my shot was off, and I had to contribute a different way, so talking, communication and lockdown defense,” Guse said.
“Right before overtime, I asked who wanted (Harmon), and (Guse) said ‘Me,’ and she most certainly took care of business,” Phillips added. “We can always rely on Madelyn and Caroline to give us buckets in key moments, and I think it’s easy for us to look at the scorebook and attribute it to them, and as we should, but Jenna had some huge deflections and stops on defense, as well, that gave us a lot of momentum. So everyone played their role perfectly tonight, and that’s why we came out on top.”
The Olympians’ team defense was effective, as well. They held North (8-3) scoreless for more than 7 minutes between the 6 1/2-minute mark of the second quarter until just under 7 minutes remained in the third period. East (4-9) also held the Bull Dogs scoreless for more than 6 minutes from the 5 minute mark of the third quarter until 6:40 remained in the game.
“We knew if they got hot, we were going to lose our momentum, so we wanted to keep our momentum and make sure no one was getting hot or scoring layups that was going to take the momentum away from us,” Guse said. “We knew today that we really needed to lock in and focus, and we came in here not overconfident, not thinking we were going to lose, so we kept our energy up and just talking and encouraging each other and playing as a team.”
East led 21-20 with 6 1/2 minutes left when North finally started clicking. A basket by Miley McClellan, followed by a basket by Paige Terry, a 3-pointer from McClellan and a three-point play from Ava Wilson gave the Bull Dogs a 10-0 run in a span of 1:14 and gave them a seemingly comfortable 30-21 lead with 5 minutes remaining.
During that run, North was able to cause turnovers off its full-court press, something it had been unable to do the first three quarters.
“We were hoping to be able to pressure more consistently,” North coach Brett White said. “We weren’t making shots early and weren’t really able to get into that. So when we were effective in it, it helped us go on a run. We just then got a little bit more tentative on the offensive end when we were up, and unfortunately, things kind of turned around.”
The Bull Dogs still led 33-25 with less than 3 minutes left, but the Olympians were able to whittle it down to 33-31 with 1:54 remaining. A free throw by Wilson made it 34-31 before Poe hit the game-tying 3.
“When they went away from their press, it gave us a lot of confidence and ability to run our half-court offense, which I knew that we would be able to score in,” Phillips said. “So that was huge for us, and we were able to keep Harmon pretty quiet for most of the game, which was also big. We knew that we were going to have to keep them out of a 3-point contest, and we did that tonight.”
After Poe hit a free throw to begin the overtime, North freshman Avery Johnson hit a 3-pointer, and Kaitlin White made a free throw to give the Bull Dogs a 38-35 lead. But baskets by Poe and Frost gave the lead back to East.
Poe hit two free throws with 33 seconds left to make it 41-38. The Bull Dogs called a timeout to set up a play, but turned it over and Cuhadar scored on a breakaway to ice it.
“I honestly think that we played so good together as a team,” Frost added. “I think these last couple games that we’ve played, we’ve been pressing, and this wass the moment for us. I think we really did what we wanted to do. We executed well offensively. It was really hectic at times, but we just persevered through and played together as a team.”
That especially was the case after falling behind by nine in the fourth quarter.
“I knew that right then and there, we had to turn it up and play together as one to our full potential, and I knew if we were going to make a comeback, we had to go right then and there, and that was exactly what we did,” Poe said. “I felt like we really had the momentum on our side going into overtime, and I knew if we stayed together as a team and continued to play our basketball game, then we would pull out a win. I think it was a super great team win.”
Sophomore Miley McClellan led North with 10 points and six rebounds, but left the game late in the fourth quarter after experiencing cramping in her calf. The Bull Dogs played most of the fourth quarter and overtime with three freshmen on the floor, while East was playing mostly five seniors.
“It’s definitely part of it,” Brett White said. “We also had Miley having trouble with cramps in her leg. We had Kenna (Conrad), who bumped heads diving on the floor. So we weren’t able to rotate people through as much. So youth was probably a part of it, and fatigue was probably a part of it, but you have to give them credit because they made plays down the stretch and made some free throws when they needed to, and we just didn’t do those winning plays like they did.”
Phillips was glad to pull out a win in her first East-North game.
“Just the atmosphere that Columbus created for us tonight was so special,” Phillips said. “I’m so happy that we got to be a part of it. Obviously, coming out on the winning side makes things a lot better, but overall, we just had a huge night in terms of battling and having some resilience.”
Columbus East 43, Columbus North 38 (OT)
Columbus East;6;7;6;15;9;—;43
Columbus North;7;5;7;15;4;—;38
Columbus East (4-9): Kenzi Cheek 0 0-2 0, Jenna Guse 1 2-6 4, Kimberly Carothers 0 0-0 0, Victoria Cuhadar 1 0-0 2, Messiah Trapp 3 0-1 6, Caroline Frost 5 5-7 15, Madelyn Poe 5 4-6 16, Savanna Sullivan 0 0-0 0. Totals: 15 11-22 43.
Columbus North (8-3): Kenna Conrad 0 1-2 1, Ava Wilson 2 2-3 7, Olivia Johnson 1 0-1 2, Kaylie Harmon 2 0-0 4, Paige Terry 2 1-2 5, Kaitlin White 0 1-2 1, Miley McClellan 4 0-0 10, Avery Johnson 2 0-2 5, Sydney Johnson 0 3-6 3. Totals: 13 8-18 38.
3-point goals: Columbus East 2 (Poe 2); Columbus North 4 (McClellan 2, Wilson, A. Johnson).
