Terre Haute North no match for Bloomington South 86-55

North can’t keep up with No. 1 Bloomington South

By Dennis Clark
The Tribune-Star

TERRE HAUTE — Class 4A top-ranked Bloomington South came out of the blocks roasting hot offensively, nailing 8-of-13 3-pointers in the first half, while host Terre Haute North was committing 16 turnovers.

In the second half, North cut their turnovers down by half. But darned if Bloomington South didn’t equal their first-half output — yup, they drained another 8-of-13 3-pointers.

Bloomington South’s deadly combination of 57 percent field goal shooting — 61.5 percent from beyond the 3-point arc — coupled with 17 steals on defense, enabled the visiting Panthers to breeze to a 86-55 victory in a nonconference boys high school basketball game on Saturday.

South never trailed in the game after scoring the game’s first four points. But they led just 13-8 when North’s Thomas Anderson scored inside with 2:46 left in the first quarter.

That was the pivotal point in the contest as North failed to score another field goal for the next nine minutes. By that time, South had drained 7-of-9 treys in the second quarter, heading to intermission in possession of a commanding 41-19 lead.

“Bloomington South is a very fine basketball team,” North coach Todd Woelfle said, stating the obvious. “They shot the ball extremely well … we had too many turnovers.

“We didn’t show enough patience or execute on the offensive end, so that was disappointing. I just don’t think we competed to the best of our ability.”

Woelfle wasn’t surprised with Bloomington South’s shooting ability. But he thought too many of the 3’s came too easily.

“Part of that was them, they have excellent shooters,” Woelfle admitted. “We had a gameplan and I just don’t think that we followed it the way that we would have liked to. We left them open several times and they got a lot of the 3’s in transition off of our turnovers. So that was a major problem.”

In the first half for South, Spencer Turner hit three 3’s, Jordan Hulls hit a pair, while Jacob Mulinix added three treys off the bench.

In the second half for South, Hills, Turner, Mulinix and Darwin Davis Jr. added one more trey, then three players off the end of the bench added four 3’s, including two straight by Brandon French.

“I just told the players you’re making my job a lot harder,” said Bloomington South coach J.R. Holmes. “We’re in this mode where we’re going to try to whittle our team to the top seven or eight. Then everyone I put in, even the guys that don’t play on the varsity, hit 3’s tonight.”

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