Dogs fight off Indians
By Mike Hutton 648-3139 or mhutton@post-trib.com February 7, 2012 11:32PM
Crown Point's Courtneyy Kvachkoff shoots a freethrow with 1:32 left in the game to make the score 46-43 Crown Point at Portage High School Tuesday evening.| Jeffrey D. Nicholls~Sun-Times Media
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Updated: March 9, 2012 8:19AM
PORTAGE — Crown Point can exhale — at least for a couple of days.
The Bulldogs escaped with a 53-47 victory over Portage on Tuesday in the opening round of the Portage Sectional. The Bulldogs will play LaPorte after the Slicers beat Chesterton 38-31 in the second game.
The win was too close for comfort for the Bulldogs, who had defeated the Indians (5-18) twice during the regular season.
Crown Point blew a 10-point lead in the fourth quarter only to salvage the game down the stretch by making 15 free throws in the fourth.
It was a nail-biter that Crown Point coach Annie Equihua is glad is behind the team.
“I’m proud of the kids for hanging in there,” she said. “We pulled it off.”
Crown Point scored eight straight after Portage had jumped out to a 5-2 lead. A basket by Courtney Kvachkoff with 4:52 left made the score 10-5. The Indians bounced back, going on a 12-3 run. A pair of free throws at the end of the first quarter gave Portage a 17-13 lead after the first quarter.
A 17-2 second-quarter spurt, highlighted by a pair of 3-pointers from Abby Kvachkoff helped Crown Point to a 30-19 advantage. The Bulldogs finished the quarter ahead 30-22 after Nicki Monahan three-point play the old fashioned way.
The Bulldogs were leading 41-31 with 40 seconds left in the third quarter and finished the quarter up 41-33.
The wheels started to come off when the Indians went into a 1-3-1 full-court press. Portage scored seven straight at the start of the fourth quarter to pull within a point.
The Indians capped a 10-1 run with 3:44 left when Nicki Monahan, who finished with 18 points, made a 3-pointer that put the Indians ahead 43-42.
Free throws by Courtney Kvachkoff and Kendall Brown gave Crown Point the lead again.
After the Bulldogs grabbed the lead, Portage couldn’t back over the hump. A 3-pointer by Alyssa Tampier with 1:09 left on a clean look would’ve tied the game, but it bounced off the back of the rim.
For the Indians, it was a case of getting rattled by the same kind of full-court pressure they had applied to Crown Point to take the lead.
“We stayed tough and we chipped away at the lead,” Portage coach Chris Seibart said. “We just had a couple of turnovers and jump balls that didn’t go our way.”
Kvachkoff led Crown Point with 16 points. Ten of those points came on free throws in the final quarter.
In the second game, the Slicers got 13 huge points and 12 rebounds from Kelsey Gushrowski to help them beat Chesterton for the second time this season.
Gushrowsk scored 10 of her points in the fourth quarter.
LaPorte coach Skeeter Heath said both teams were average offensively so he knew he needed to find some offense other than what Kelsey Sule would provide. Sule finished with 18 points.
“Those points were huge,” Heath said.
The game was tied at 24 after three quarters but the Slicers scored the first six points — four of them by Gushrowski on putbacks.
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