Younger Huskies open with tough loss to Bulldogs

By RICHIE HALL
ARCADIA – This year’s edition of the Hamilton Heights girls basketball team is a little younger than last year, but the goals are still the same.
Last season’s Huskies team had a core group of three seniors that led Heights to a 20-win season and a sectional championship. While those seniors are now playing college athletics, there is enough experience left on this year’s Huskies team to build on that success.
Heights will again be trying to do that against a difficult schedule. The Huskies hosted Brownsburg Wednesday night in their season opener, and the Bulldogs dominated early on their way to a 60-35 win.
Brownsburg scored the first 10 points of the game in less than two minutes, prompting Heights to take its first 30-second time out with 6:05 left in the first quarter. The Bulldogs continued to roll after that, leading 16-0 before the Huskies finally scored with 46 seconds left in the period.
The first Heights basket was by freshman Mykayla Moran, a 6-foot-2 center. Brownsburg got one more bucket before the quarter ended, giving it an 18-2 lead.
The Huskies played a little more even with the Bulldogs in the second quarter. Junior Bayleigh Runner started the period with a 3-pointer, and hit another triple later in the quarter. Runner was the second-leading scorer for Heights last season at 10.8 points per game.
At halftime, Brownsburg led 28-11, and the Bulldogs slowly increased their lead throughout the second half.
“The one thing that we stressed prior to this game was poise and toughness, and we didn’t have either one of those things,” said Heights coach Keegan Cherry. “We didn’t have poise early, they jumped on us. Just a lot of unforced errors. And then toughness, we didn’t have toughness, really, at all tonight. They killed us on the backboard. Multiple possessions they got multiple opportunities, and when you play a good team like Brownsburg, you got to do all the little things. And we didn’t do that tonight.”
Runner is one of five returning players on this year’s Huskies squad, and one of two starters. The other starter back is senior Lauryn Wiley; she averaged 5.5 points and 4.2 rebounds last season. Runner and Wiley led Heights in their opener with 10 points each.
Also back are junior Payton Dissett, who was often the first off the bench for Heights last year, sophomore Jillian Osswald, who played 13 games last season as a freshman, and junior Chloe Henderson, who played six games last year.
After the freshman Moran, new to the varsity roster this year are senior Abby Christiansen and junior Hailey Champion.
“I’ve got a great locker room,” said Cherry. “I’ve got tremendous girls in there. The one thing that I really like about it now, after things have sort of shaken out here is, I’ve got loyal girls in that locker room and I’ve got loyal families. So as long as I have those two things, then we’re going to be just fine. We’re going to keep getting better. We’re playing for February.”
Runner pulled seven rebounds, while Moran had five. Runner also dished out four assists.
Heights will host Danville, which is ranked No. 4 in Class 3A in the Indiana Coaches of Girls Sports Association’s pre-season poll. (Brownsburg received votes in the 4A poll.) This will be par for the course for the Huskies, who are playing 10 4A teams this season, and also will be taking on tough 2A and 3A teams, including Hoosier Conference opponent Northwestern, the defending 3A state champion.
“And that’s by design,” said Cherry. “Everything that we do, we’re in preparation for the tournament.”

Lauryn Wiley is one of two returning starters for the Hamilton Heights girls basketball team this season. Wiley scored 10 points for the Huskies in their season-opening game with Brownsburg on Wednesday. (Kent Graham)

Bayleigh Runner scored 10 points for Heights in its season opener. Runner was a starter on last year’s Huskies team. (Kent Graham)