Hoosier Basketball Magazine - Girls Top 60 workout

On Sunday afternoon, March 15th, on the near west side of Indianapolis, Marian University athletic director Steve Downing, men's basketball assistant coach Scott Fleming and women's basketball head coach Katie Gearlds played hosts to the "cream of the crop" and labeled as the best senior girls basketball players the state of Indiana has to offer.

Garry Donna, publisher of Hoosier Basketball Magazine, was on hand for the 34th Annual Girls' Top 60 workout as the host of the Sunday afternoon event. He was also joined by Charlie Hall, director of the boys and girls Indiana All-Star teams. Hall has some tough decisions to make in the near future. The 2015 Miss Basketball will have been named before the remainder of the all-star team is determined, but Hall is forced to choose from a tremendously talented pool of 2015 senior girls.

Two sessions at 1:00 and 3:30 were pieced together to pit the now 64 girls that were invited to the workout. More than 60 were invited because of injuries to Lamina Cooper (Lawrence North), Lindsay Kusbel (Lake Central) and Zuri Sanders (Evansville Central) who were all selected but injured and were unable to participate, but were still recognized.

Each session contained 32 players that were divided into four teams of eight players. Scrimmages would consist of each team getting to play the other three teams of eight during an eight minute quarter with a running clock.

At the time, it didn't seem like a normally timed quarter with a running clock would be ample amount of game action to see what these girls can do on the court. Those, along with different individual drills that Heritage Christian head coach Rick Risinger and a handful of assistants would run to get the girls back into game mode, will decipher the final 12 that will become Indiana All-Stars.

Locally, three girls from Hamilton county schools were chosen to be a part of the workouts at Marian University. Noblesville's Becca Bergman, Carmel's Abby Abel and Adrianna Murphy from Fishers were all three a part of the 3:30 session.

Myself, Noblesville head coach Donna Keck, along with assistants Tria Yoder and Amy Wuestefeld, made our way to the west side of downtown Indianapolis to support Noblesville senior point guard Becca Bergman.

Bergman was placed on a team that seemed to be seven teammates that would be able to help each others' cases to be an Indiana All-Star. She had the opportunity to play with two-time 2A state champion Peyton Fallis (Heritage Christian), Shayla Wright (Southport), Sarah Cook (Rushville), Bri Gliesmann (Center Grove), Nakeya Penny (Logansport), Mikayla Rowan (Northview) and Mackenzie Taylor (Richmond).

Abel had the great opportunity to play with Miss Basketball candidate from 4A state champion Columbus North, Ali Patberg. The 5'4 Carmel senior was also teammates with 2A state champ Allison Schofield (Heritage Christian), McKenzy Telfair (Indianapolis Ritter), Regan Wentland (Center Grove), Brooke Saylor (Eastbrook), Loren Vukovits (John Glenn) and Katie Key (Frankton).

Murphy was placed on a team of eight that included the third senior, Sydney Hall, from Heritage Christian that made this list. They ran the floor with Joselynn King (Merrillville), Sarah Corbin (Mooresville), Mallory Smith (Northview), Brittany Ward (Pike), Taylor Stephen (Connersville) and Olivia Coleman from Mt. Vernon (Fortville).

It may have been the toughest tryout that any of those 64 girls have had to endure at this point in their basketball careers, but it's one that they'll all remember for the rest of their lives.