Chesterton girls basketball team playing fast and lighting it up from long distance so far this summer

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

Four players stand above the rest on the Chesterton girls basketball roster in terms of having extensive experience and success playing against the sort of competition that awaits the Trojans in the DAC.
Senior Novea Brandon, juniors Reese Dilbeck and Lindsi McGuffey and sophomore Ella Boyanski combined for 37.5 points last season. All four players are threats to score on 3-point threats and drives.
Speedy sisters Addison, a junior, and Macie Pack, a sophomore, also logged big minutes for a team that went 15-8 overall and took third in the DAC with a 5-2 record.
The battle for playing time after that has been ongoing throughout June, mostly among girls who played for the JV team last season.
The more the established players can find ways to set up the newcomers for meaningful contributions, the better the role players will perform.
That’s why it was so encouraging to see Brandon pitch the ball ahead to sprinting junior Ruby Dudek, who went in for an uncontested layup and made it in a lopsided win over Kankakee Valley in the first of two games on Monday night, the final night of the Chesterton Summer League.
Every time a role player is set up in that manner, she’ll become better at her job and the Trojans, going to battle with an inexperienced bench, will become a better team.
“Running fast like that in transition and me and other guards being able to get up the floor and get them open for looks is something we can get easy baskets from,” Brandon said. “Transition is something we thrive off of.”
Chesterton routed Portage in the night cap and last weekend won all four games at the Charlie Hughes tournament, including a 20-point win over Bloomington North.
Teams that sprint the court relentlessly are rewarded with open 3s in transition, so that’s a nice combination. When playing other fast teams, Chesterton will need to find a way to get open 3s in its halfcourt offense. The best way to do that is to move the ball faster than the defense can catch up. Impatience undermines that goal and leads to guarded and/or rushed shots.
So, if they share the ball even on nights when opponents do a solid job of choking the fastbreak, scoring shouldn’t be a problem for the Trojans.
Defensively, forcing turnovers should be a strength for the undersized team.
“I think our chemistry is really good. I think this year, we're small, but we're really fast, and I think we really turn up the tempo and pressure on defense, which is good,” Brandon said. “And I think we're really good in transition. And obviously we can score. I think if we can continue to bring that pace and continue to grow because it’s only the summer we can be really, really, really good.”
Dilbeck is the team’s center out of necessity and she makes it work against taller players with clever footwork.
Wilson appreciates Dilbeck’s versatility and unselfishness: “Reece, we can put anywhere right now, just anywhere. She could play point guard for us. Novea’s cranked it up, Lindsi. We've got a lot of good outside shooters this year, more scorers than we’ve had in the past. The girls hit 11 3s in that game against Bloomington North. We’re really jelling right now. Macy has stepped up, Ruby. We’ve got a good rotation going now.”
After the girls went 4-0 in the Charlie Hughes tournament in Fishers last weekend and 2-0 Monday in the summer league finale, Chesterton’s busy schedule continued Wednesday in the first of three days of games, eight shortened ones in all, at the Hammond Sportsplex.
While acknowledging that her team lacks size and experienced depth, Wilson likes what she sees so far in summing things up: “We’ve got to keep everybody healthy. We’ve got shooters, scorers. They’re feisty. We’ve got a little edge to us this year. But, yeah, they're fun. They're fun to coach.”