Girls Basketball: LaPorte’s sharp shooting sinks Crown Point

Updated: December 2, 2011 11:43PM

CROWN POINT — Live by the 3-point shot — and often die by it.

That’s something you hear repeatedly, particularly from teams that beat other schools who love to shoot treys.

Yet, in Friday night’s Duneland Athletic Conference game between LaPorte and Crown Point, the Slicers lived by the 3-point shot — and thrived from it.

The Slicers (4-2, 1-2) swished 11 of 24 3-point shots overall (46.8 percent) and cruised to a stunning 60-45 win over the shocked Bulldogs (4-2, 2-1).

Slicers senior guard Kelsey Sule buried five of nine treys and scored a team-high 17 points to lead LaPorte, while sophomore guard Jaclyn Heath made two of five attempts and finished with 11 points and handed-out a game-high seven assists.

Taylor Thompson had a game-high 15 rebounds, five points and five assists for the Slicers.

“Right now (threes) are kind of our bread and butter,’’ LaPorte coach Skeeter Heath said. “With Kelsey and Jaclyn we’re definitely going to be a team that shoots a lot of 3s.’’

Sule, a 43 percent 3-point shooter last season as a junior, has actually struggled a little from behind the arc this season, according to Heath.

After draining nine triples in a 33-point win over South Bend Washington and following her performance against the Bulldogs on Friday night, that’s hard to believe.

“I was very surprised they were giving me that shot, because we can shoot the threes,’’ Sule smiled. “Jaclyn is huge off the dribble. Obviously, I’m a perimeter threat, and Jaclyn is, too. We’ll take what we can get. We just wanted to win. This was a big night for us, for sure.’’

Crown Point coach Annie Equihua said her team worked in practice all week to make sure LaPorte’s perimeter shooters wouldn’t get good looks.

“Everything was designed to get a hand in the shooters’ faces and that we’d switch on picks, but that did not happen,’’ she said. “We had some mental breakdowns out there, too. If you don’t stick to the plan this is what can happen. We’re just a much better defensive team than we showed tonight. Defensively, though, we didn’t put much effort in until the middle of the third quarter. By then, it was too little, too late.’’

Even though Heath was happy with his team’s 3-point shooting, he was more ecstatic about the defense they played.

“This was the first game all year we played any defense,’’ he said. “We scored around the same amount of points we usually score, but we gave up 15 to 20 less than we have been. We’ve worked very hard on our defense in practice to get better. It’s really been very frustrating for us, so this effort tonight is very encouraging.’’

Courtney Kvachkoff led the Bulldogs, who play at Carmel on Saturday, with 17 points, five rebounds, two assists and two steals.

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