Norwalk competes in loss to No. 1 Bellevue

NORWALK — The odds were long. But on a night two communities gathered for the late Steve Gray, the Norwalk girls basketball team gave the defending state champs its closest league game of the season by far. Prior to Friday, Bellevue's closest SBC Lake victory was by 37 points. The No. 1-ranked team in Division IV had an average margin of victory in the league of 42 points. On Jan. 2, the Lady Red were never threatened in a resounding 65-13 win over the Truckers. But that was far from the case Friday, though Bellevue also led for the final 27-plus minutes of a 46-33 victory. Entering the tournament draw on Sunday, Norwalk head coach Kyle Brubaker said that is what his team will point to. "We told the girls that this is why we push you," he said. "We know what you're capable of, and if this is the effort and focus we bring to every game, what can we accomplish? That is what we are chasing." With the win, Bellevue (18-0, 8-0) clinched at least a share of the league title, the program's 16th straight. Norwalk fell to 15-6 overall and 7-2 in the league. In between the two varsity games — which included a 74-32 win by the Redmen in the boys matchup — the two schools honored the late Steve Gray. The all-time wins leader at Norwalk died suddenly on Dec. 28 at the age of 69. Between the two communities, more than $13,000 was raised for the Steve Gray Memorial Scholarship Fund. In an emotional moment with Steve's wife, Sue, her three daughters, and other members of the Gray family, the NHS gym was named "Gray's Garage" in his honor. "We knew with what was going on here with honoring Coach Gray and the doubleheader with the varsity teams that was going to be tough, because they also had league title hopes still as well," Bellevue head coach Kory Santoro said. "The first game with Norwalk, we hit a lot of shots early. But this is a tough place to play, and Norwalk played hard. That was our closest league game by far, and we knew we were going to have to take their punch." Norwalk led 7-6 early before Bellevue closed the first quarter on a 7-2 run to lead 13-9. The Truckers got a basket from Jo Jackson to start the second quarter and still trailed 18-16 when Jackson made two free throws with 1:41 left in the first half. But Bellevue got a free throw from Kaitlyn Turinsky with 42.1 seconds left, and perhaps the biggest sequence of the game followed. The Lady Red were playing for the last shot when it appeared a Norwalk defender had poked the ball free. However, freshman Ava Jakubcin-Theis got to hit and hit a high-arching 3-pointer from the right wing with 5.3 seconds left in the half for a 22-16 lead. That momentum carried into the third quarter when junior Carrington Savage made two straight threes, the last of which made it a 29-16 lead less than 90 seconds into the third quarter. Norwalk trailed by 18 with under two minutes left in the third quarter and got as close as 12 with 7:23 remaining at 40-28 on a steal and layup from Alyssa Gruhlke. The Truckers had a chance to get within nine or 10 on their next possession but came up empty. Bellevue then kept the lead at 13 to 15 points the rest of the way. "What was unfolding was going according to our game plan to that point," Norwalk head coach Kyle Brubaker said of the first half. "We had to defend the three-point line and scramble to Turinsky when she got the ball. "We were doing those things and hoping they weren't hitting shots as hot as they were the first time. But we were also rebounding really well early. I think where we started being inconsistent was with our rebounding. But that first half was a lot of what we wanted and needed the game to look like." Jakubcin-Theis led a balanced Bellevue attack with 15 points. Savage had 12, and Turinsky scored 10. Norwalk got 11 points from Trinity Lazzara in the defeat. Jackson added nine points and six rebounds. The Truckers close out the regular season next Wednesday at Perkins. BELLEVUE (18-0, 8-0) Ellie Freitag 1-2—4, Lexi Underwood 1-0—2, Ava Jakubcin-Theis 3-8—15, Carrington Savage 4-1—12, Kaitlyn Turinsky 4-2—10, Mazie Gracemyer 1-0—2. TOTALS 14-13—46. NORWALK (15-6, 7-2) CJ Bennett 1-0—2, Alyssa Gruhlke 1-1—3, Bella Hernandez 2-2—6, Emmie Leber 1-0—2, Trinity Lazzara 5-1—11, Jo Jackson 2-5—9. TOTALS 12-9—33. Bellevue 13 9 18 6 — 46 Norwalk 9 7 7 10 — 33 Three-point goals: (B) Savage 3, Jakubcin-Theis 2. BOYS BASKETBALL Bellevue 74, Norwalk 32 In the first game, the Redmen had entered into a bit of a shooting funk. It didn't take long for them to shoot their way out of it. After shooting 4-of-44 over its past two games from the three-point line, the Redmen (12-6, 5-3 SBC Lake) made their first five 3s in the first quarter and finished 12-of-24 for the game in the 42-point rout over the Truckers. "We've really been struggling shooting, so it's nice to come out and hit one, then two and three, then it became contagious," Bellevue head coach Ed Rich said. "We didn't take Norwalk lightly by any means. They've been playing and getting better; we just jumped on them early, and I'm proud of my guys for not taking them lightly." Reid Claus made three 3s in the first quarter for Bellevue, which jumped out to a 26-2 lead after one and removed any doubt from the start. JJ Vogel added three 3s in the second quarter and made five for the game to lead the team with 15 points as the Redmen took a 42-13 halftime lead. Claus added 13 points for Bellevue, while Owen Hancock scored eight points. For Norwalk (0-17, 0-8), Caiden Schmidt scored 10 points. Kingston Gonzales and Brandon Carty each added six points. "When they shoot it like that, they're going to be tough to beat," Norwalk head coach Adam Kreischer said. "I was a little disappointed with how we handled their pressure tonight. We've gotten better throughout the year at attacking pressure for open looks, "But we didn't attack tonight and played too much on our heels. Maybe the atmosphere got to us a little bit tonight, but we waited for a second trap rather than attacking the first one. When you play on your heels like that, eventually those troops and pressure will get to you." BELLEVUE (12-6, 5-3) Samuel Bollinger 3-0—6, Ike Brown 2-0—5, JJ Vogel 5-0—15, Reid Claus 4-1—13, Evan Bova 1-0—2, Brock Stovall 1-0—2, Mason Flicker 3-0—6, Caden Cramer 2-0—4, Owen Hancock 4-0—8, Wyatt Berger 2-0—5, Braiden Hill 1-0—3, Elijah Turinsky 2-1—5. TOTALS 30-2—74 NORWALK (0-17, 0-8) Kingston Gonzales 2-0—6, Xavier Saunders 1-0—3, Kian Kreischer 1-0—3, Nolan Jones 2-0—4, Brandon Carty 2-1—6, Caiden Schmidt 5-0—10. TOTALS 13-1—32 Bellevue 26 16 10 22 — 74 Norwalk 2 11 6 13 — 32 Three-point FGs: (B) Vogel 5, Claus 4, Brown, Berger, Hill; (N) Gonzales 2, Saunders, Kreischer, Carty