With six seniors on the roster, Bishop Brossart wasn’t ready to let their season end Monday night.
The experience showed, as they led the entire way in a 53-46 victory over Campbell County in the 37th District tournament semifinals.
Building a 12-point lead in the third quarter, Brossart knew an eventual Camels run was coming. So when the Camels got within five in the early stages of the fourth quarter, it was consecutive putbacks from Jill Planeaux and Molly Kramer to answer, taking the wind out of the Camels sails in their comeback attempt.
“Jill for her size is a tremendous rebounder. Those two are just athletes, they’re gonna go play and they play with high motors,” Brossart coach Steve Brown said. “Molly getting getting some early touches that was a focus. I thought we had a little bit of an experience advantage with her in the post.”
Planeaux isn’t quite the physical figure that Kramer presents, the guard being able to rebound with the best of them pound for pound. Planeaux is the second leading rebounder on the team behind Kramer.
“I just always try to battle on the inside and just use my strength to get anything I can to help the team out,” Planeaux said.
It’s those types of plays that has Brossart to 20 wins now and in position to try and win their third straight district title. The solid defensive effort helped too.
“I thought our kids did a great job of squaring them off and making them re-route and catch further out. Honestly, we didn’t work a whole lot on offense the last two or three days. Mostly defense we talked about,” Brown said. “We knew we couldn’t let them penetrate into the lane and if we did, it was going to be a long night.”
Campbell never got closer than seven from there. Brossart’s defense was just too much in the contest. The Lady ‘Stangs held the Camels to just two first half field goals, the two teams combining to shoot 21 free throws as Brossart built a 22-12 lead by the break.
“We knew how we had to keep them out of the middle and that would be the key to beating them and once we did that they just couldn’t do anything,” Brossart senior Molly Kramer said.
They got their largest lead of the night to open up the second half at 12 on two different occasions, but a Camels team that had knocked off Brossart earlier in the season started to mount their run. They’d get within six at 26-20 on a 6-0 run, the two headed to the fourth with a 34-26 Brossart lead.
Despite hitting just 6-of-11 from the line in the final frame, again it was the Brossart defense that continued to keep Campbell out of rhythm. In a last ditch effort, the Camels dwindled things down to seven, but a missed free throw and two open looks from the field with less than two minutes to go couldn’t find the bottom of the net and Brossart moves on to Wednesday’s championship game.
“That’s what they do. We try to simulate it in practice, but six seniors you can’t really simulate the pressure that’s coming in and we struggled with it early. That’s why we kind of tried to speed the game up and turn it into a track meet the second half,” Camels coach Davey Johnson said.
Sophomore Macie Peoples led the Camels with 11 points, senior Kennedy Johnson and freshman Isabella Jayasuriya chipping in 10 apiece. Camels leading scorer Keauna Cullum was held to five points.
“We put a lot on our underclassmen’s shoulders. I thought they did a fantastic job carrying that weight despite being so young. We threw some of them into roles whether they were ready or not and that’s really exciting about this team, the future is so bright,” Johnson said.
Brossart had four with at least nine points, seniors Molly Kramer and Olivia Lloyd pouring in 16 and 12 points, respectively, while Planeaux and sophomore Zoee Meyers had nine apiece.
Wednesday’s final against Scott is set for 7 p.m. Brossart defeated Scott 53-51 back on February 7.
BISHOP BROSSART — 12-10-12-19 — 53
CAMPBELL COUNTY — 6-6-14-20 — 46
Brossart (53) – Kramer 16, Lloyd 12, Meyers 9, Planeaux 9, Rowe 3, Hummell 2, Bertsch 2
Campbell (46) – Peoples 11, Jayasuriya 10, Johnson 10, Collins 8, Cullum 5, Beck 2