Trojan girls take pride in suffocating defense

When most young players pick up the game of basketball, they’re doing so with dreams of knocking down 3-pointers or whipping behind-the-back passes on high-scoring teams.

Cutting off the baseline and denying the ball aren’t what get you on the highlight reel. But they do win you games.

For Center Grove’s girls, the end result is more important than style points — and so far, defense has been what has gotten the job done.

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“If you play defense, at any level, at any sport, you give yourself a chance,” head coach Kevin Stuckmeyer said. “That’s all we want is a chance every night. Credit our girls for hating to lose enough to be willing to do it at that end.”

The Trojans set the tone for the season with a 49-24 victory over Plainfield in the opener. They later opened Johnson County tournament play by limiting Indian Creek and Edinburgh to 22 points each and holding Whiteland to 15 first-half points in the championship game before fending off a late run.

Last week, Franklin became the fourth team this season to score fewer than 25 points against Center Grove.

“That’s kind of their calling card,” Grizzly Cubs coach Josh Sabol said after his team’s 45-23 loss. “Tons of credit to them and their coaching staff. Their defense is fantastic.”

Only top-ranked Warren Central and No. 8 Brownsburg have managed more than 46 points against the Trojans; both still scored below their respective season averages. Heading into Thursday’s home game against Bloomington South, Center Grove is allowing a mere 36.4 points per contest, the seventh-lowest figure among Class 4A teams.

The key, Stuckmeyer says, is creating a team culture that values effort and execution at the defensive end. He and his assistants make it a point during film reviews to single out “highlight plays” at the defensive end and let girls know that those plays are just as important as anything that happens on offense.

“It’s fun when it’s offense, but our girls have really taken a liking to stopping the other team’s best players and holding them under their average, and they’re starting to find out that’s pretty fun too.”

The tone is set at the top, where senior guard Emma Utterback makes life miserable for opposing ballhandlers with her aggressive style. The University of Vermont recruit is recording 1.4 steals per game, tied with Ashley Eck for tops on a squad averaging almost 10 thefts per contest.

Utterback says that she’s able to be even more disruptive because she has confidence in her teammates to do their jobs behind her.

“I’m allowed to do the job that I am — coach says ‘letting Emma loose’ — because I know that I have girls on the wing that are helping me out if I do end up getting beat, which does happen sometimes. … I can definitely take more risks.”

“They complement her ball pressure by being up the line, being able to take something away and seeing the setup on the back side and being able to take care of it,” Stuckmeyer added. “They all play their part that allows each individual, then, to shine in their own individual part.”

And they’ve been able to shine despite what would appear to be some built-in disadvantages, at least on paper.

Unlike almost all of the state’s other top-rated defensive teams, Center Grove doesn’t have a big post presence as its backbone. With the exception of 6-foot freshman Katie Egenolf off the bench, the Trojans don’t have anyone taller than 5-foot-10 on the roster.

More often than not, it’s up to undersized “bigs” such as senior Kylie Storm to battle down low against players several inches taller. Despite that, Stuckmeyer doesn’t see a real disadvantage for his team in the paint.

“Our physical stature might be lacking,” he said, “but our focus, our toughness and our heart are not small. And those three areas can make up for a lot of things. … It’s not a mismatch all the time, even when the height would beg to differ.”

“Even though (Storm) is shorter than a lot of the girls, I think she does a good job because she works so much on her post defense and she really puts in a lot of effort to getting in front and making sure her hands are up to cause problems,” Utterback said.

So far, the Trojans’ defense has caused plenty of problems for opponents. Stuckmeyer knows that there will be some nights where opponents are going to get theirs; with so many of Indiana’s best teams on the schedule, it’s bound to happen now and then. But the coach takes pride in the fact that hardly any of the points those teams score will come easily.

“It’s been neat to watch our girls buy into the physical toughness and the mentality that you’re going to have to earn everything,” Stuckmeyer said. “You catch it around the basket, we’re not giving in. … We just do whatever we can to not give in and make you earn everything.”