For an early November season opener, it still felt like football season, because it is. But, with both Noblesville and Lawrence North's football seasons finished, all heads are turned to winter sports at each school. The weather is still pretty mild, but that doesn't mean that high school basketball season can't get started.
There's no better way to start the season off than to have two preseason ranked top-5 teams take to the hardwood.
Noblesville, coming off of an Elite 8 appearance after bowing out in the 4A Kokomo Regional to Homestead 83-66, is a hungry group that is out to prove something this season. Losing their five graduates
Lawrence North, lost a 69-60 battle with eventual state champion Columbus North and Miss Basketball Ali Patberg in the 4A south Semi-State and are also out to let people know that they still have a lot of talent despite the graduation departures of Amani Ferguson, Jordan Hankins (Northwestern) and Lamina Cooper (Purdue).
4A #3 Lawrence North 72, 4A #4 Noblesville 58 - (Thurs. 11/5 at Lawrence North)
Millers 16 8 9 25 - 58
Wildcats 21 17 16 18 - 72
From the opening tip, both teams seemed like they would be battling for a solid 32 minutes and we would all think that it was a great matchup to start the girls basketball regular season in central Indiana.
Lawrence North senior guard Lauren Dickerson started the game off with a 3-pointer and an early 3-0 lead. Katelyn O'Reilly and Alexis Shannon put Noblesville's first two field goals on the board and the Millers had their only lead of the game at 4-3. Freshman guard Trinity Brady knocked down a three to put the host Wildcats back on top 6-4, but O'Reilly would draw a foul and sink a pair of free throws to tie it up 6-6.
LN would regain the edge on the following possession and never look back for the remainder of the game.
The host Wildcats seemed like they didn't have an ounce of quit or even slow down in them during this season-opener. It wasn't just Lauren Dickerson and her 16 first half points, but freshman Trinity Brady wasn't timid in the least bit in her debut, knocking down eight of her 13 points in the first quarter. Junior move-in/transfer from Richmond, Destiny Perkins, was all over the court with her lightning fast feet, scoring seven while starting her first game in a new uniform.
Ae'Rianna Harris played like she didn't have to do a major amount of scoring, but she took on more of a defensive/rebounding role to help Lawrence North to victory. Harris and Dickerson are both all-state candidates.
Noblesville found itself trailing 21-16 after one and the Wildcats extended it to double-digits at 38-24. The Millers unfortunately weren't able to put the defensive clamps on in the third. The speed of Lawrence North's offense appeared to be too much for the Millers.
With the LN offense clicking on all cylinders, they held Noblesville's offense to a total of 17 points in the middle two quarters, both single-digit outputs. That helped the Wildcats extend their lead to 54-33 through three, making it that much tougher for a Miller comeback.
The fourth quarter became more of a shootout and a learning experience for Noblesville. Coach Buckley would leave it to no one other than the combination of seniors Katelyn O'Reilly and Alexis Shannon to wake up the Millers' offense.
It didn't go unnoticed that O'Reilly scored 15 of her game-high 24 points in the fourth and Shannon netted 7 of her 15 in the final frame.
The Millers made a great effort, but it wasn't enough as Lawrence North held on for a season-opening 72-58 win.
Lauren Dickerson led the Wildcats with a team-high 22, including four 3-pointers. Trinity Brady was the 2nd leading scorer for LN with 13, while Mya Parker added 11 off the bench on five field goals. Ae'Rianna Harris (9) and Destiny Perkins (7) also did their share for the hosts.
Noblesville (0-1) dropped their first season-opener in the Donna Keck era (now Buckley) since her first year on the Millers' bench when they opened the 2008-09 season with a 62-59 home loss to Kokomo.
The Millers were led by O'Reilly's game-high 24 points, 7 rebounds, along with 4 assists, 4 steals and 3 blocked shots. Alexis Shannon had 15 points and 3 rebounds. Emily Kiser (5), Brooke Herron (4), Haley Conway (4), Rachel Shipman (3) and Sam Salmon made up the remainder of the scoring.
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