Former Lady Vol Sydney Smallbone dedicates coaching to Pat Summitt

INDIANAPOLIS - First-year coach Sydney Smallbone, who played on South Bend St. Joseph's 2005 championship squad, became the first person in Indiana High School Athletic Association history to win the tournament as a player, then as a coach, as the Indians defeated North Harrison 57-49 in the girls Class 3A state championship Saturday night.

Smallbone said she wanted to "dedicate my coaching this year" to late former Tennessee women's basketball coach Pat Summitt. Smallbone, who played for Tennessee, said Summitt was her personal film coach for four years.

The St. Joseph coach added that she couldn't have accomplished the success without assistant coaches Kristin Dockery and Melissa Lechlitner, describing them as "huge pieces on the coaching staff."

St. Joseph (26-2) combined a smothering matchup zone defense with a balanced attack to stymie North Harrison (27-3). The Cougars, 2016 runners-up, were seeking their first state championship in any sport.

Senior guard Daly Sullivan led St. Joseph by scoring 21 points, including all six of her free throws with time winding down in the fourth quarter. She shot 6 of 14 from the floor, including 3-for-6 from behind the 3-point arc.

Guard Nicole Konieczny added nine points. Fellow senior Abby O'Conner scored eight points and grabbed eight rebounds, freshman guard Keegan Sullivan scored seven points and 12 rebounds, and senior forward Killian Mountford added seven points and 10 rebounds.

St. Joseph won its seven postseason games by an average of 22.4 points.

"We had to play three top-10 teams to get here," Smallbone said. "Not taking those opponents lightly was a big thing for us. We talked about going 1-0 every time we took the floor in the postseason. To have high school kids really buy into that, and know what it takes to execute, it really speaks volumes to their level of knowledge."

Junior guard Cali Nolot netted a double-double to lead North Harrison. She scored 27 points and had 10 rebounds.

Lilly Hatton, a 6-1 sophomore, also had a double-double with 11 points and 13 rebounds. Only three other Cougars scored points, and none of them had more than six.

"We came out hard. We were playing aggressively," said North Harrison coach Missy Voyles. "We just weren't getting shots. It wasn't going through the motions, not wanting to score and being passive. It just was the ball not going in."

The Indians began to establish themselves in the second quarter, holding the Cougars scoreless on 15 of their last 16 possessions of the half. St. Joseph outscored North Harrison 13-2 the last seven minutes before intermission, pushing the lead to 28-18.

North Harrison did not register back-to-back baskets until midway through the third quarter, and had only one other such surge late in the quarter. The Cougars did outscore the Indians 8-2 over the last half of the period, trimming the deficit to 35-18.

But O'Connor started the fourth quarter by hitting a 15-footer off a feed from Konieczny, Daly Sullivan knocked down a 3 from the left corner, and the Cougars came no closer than eight points the rest of the way.