The Seymour girls basketball team is peaking at just the right time.
On Thursday, the Owls held a lead against New Albany the entire game to take a 58-37 Hoosier Hills Conference win.
The victory marked a sixth straight win for the Owls.
If the Owls defeat Bedford North Lawrence on Feb. 5 they can tie for the HHC crown.
“I think we’re peaking; that’s three games in a row where we have finished teams off,” Owls coach Jason Longmeier said. “That’s what you need to do this time of the season. Not only that, but we’re getting great contribution from a lot of kids. Moving forward, that will make it hard for people to scout us moving into sectional.”
In the first quarter, the Owls attacked the post early but found little success getting points in the paint.
However, attacking the rim opened up the scoring from the outside.
The Owls went on a 7-2 run, behind five points from Emilee Pollmann and a bucket by Maci Lubker, at the 2:53 mark.
The closest the Bulldogs got to a lead was at 9-8 behind a field goal by Ashley Lyninger with around one minute left in the opening eight minutes of play.
Morgan Ritz caught fire for the Owls in the second quarter.
After Ritz netted a 3-pointer with 4:57 left before halftime, the Owls went on 14-3 run.
On the run, Lindsey Hume buried a 3-pointer, Lauren James added a trey and Ritz finished with five straight points.
“We started spreading the floor,” Longmeier said. “Our initial attack was to get the ball inside. Even though for the first three possessions we didn’t get what we wanted, we still forced them to defend inside which opened up our threes.”
Brianne Nixon, who scored six Bulldogs points in the first quarter, added seven points in the second to keep her team in contention.
Following a 36-34 lead at halftime, the Owls continued to pour on the outside shooting while draining two more 3-pointers from Hume and James.
Nixon appeared to re-injure her knee at the start of the third quarter, and wouldn’t return the rest of the game after leading her team in scoring at halftime.
“On the scouting report, she’s not the No. 1 threat — but tonight she was,” Longmeier said. “She got us pinned deep and got them into their offense and put us in some bad spots. You hate to see a player go down like that, I hope she’s fine come sectional time. It changed the game, it opened upthe floor. She’s a rim protector, and when she went out they didn’t have anyone to protect the rim.”
The Owls led 48-31 after 24 minutes and held on to their lead in the fourth quarter to seal a win.
Pollmann led the Owls with 15 points and James added 12 off the bench.
The Owls out-rebounded the Bulldogs 28-20 on the night, and were led by Kayla Griffin who grabbed nine boards.
“They didn’t show it tonight, but New Albany is a good 3-point shooting team,” Longmeier said. “They have three girls who can shoot the ball and we took that away from them tonight. We knew athletically, they were better athletes than us top to bottom than we were. Our kids just played so hard tonight.”
On Saturday afternoon, the Owls will host Austin.