Schroeder helps Carroll rebound against Tipp

Carroll High School's girls basketball team hasn't been the same after losing at rival Alter two weeks ago. Good thing, too.

Regrouped and redirected, the Patriots appear geared up and poised to make a season-ending run they hope to carry into the postseason.

“We did a lot of refocusing and re-evaluating,” Patriots senior Amanda Schroeder said following a surprising 52-33 dusting of visiting Tippecanoe on Monday night. “We really focused on rebounding because that was a huge factor in the Alter game. I thought we showed it this game.”

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It was a matchup of a pair of the area’s two best Division II teams with the No. 1 seed at stake in the upcoming D-II New Carlisle sectional at Tecumseh. Carroll (15-2) should have secured the top seed and Tipp (13-3) the No. 2 seed.

Coaches will vote online and meet at Troy on Feb. 5 to choose their bracket positions. Assuming they choose opposite brackets, Carroll and Tipp likely wouldn’t meet again until regionals.

“We usually run into Tipp City or Kenton Ridge in the tournament,” Carroll coach Cecilia Grosselin said. “We’re well aware of them.”

Alter, the two-time defending D-II state champ, is assured of a No. 1 seed in the Lebanon sectional. Last season Tipp swept Carroll in regular season and sectional final matchups by identical 54-41 margins.

Schroeder, a rugged 6-footer with a challenging inside game, was at her rebounding best, although she snared many of her own misses. She’s the dominant Patriots’ inside force, averaging 20.4 points and nearly 10 rebounds and showed why against the Red Devils, going for a game-high 16 points and just as many rebounds.

“I wasn’t making my first shot,” she said. “So I just kept going after it. I got a lot of offensive rebounds off my own shots.”

That effort wasn’t lost on Tipp coach Andy Holderman, who’s in his second season guiding the Red Devils.

“We started not being able to rebound and when you give good teams second and third opportunities, you put yourself in a pretty big hole,” he said.

Carroll’s Ellie Rumme added 13 points and Morgan King nine. Allison Mader paced Tipp with 10 points.

After that Alter loss Carroll also was drilled at Wayne, an area D-I force that is coming off a breakout season and is loaded with a youthful roster. That’s the kind of high-end schedule Grosselin hopes will pay off later.

“Losses are good because you can learn from them,” Grosselin said. “You can see what your weaknesses are and what you need to work on. We’re not there yet. We still need to work on some of those weaknesses but this was definitely a nice win. I’ve done pretty much what (former deceased coach) Rob (Berry) did in the past.”

It was the fourth game in eight days for Tipp, which also will play Wednesday at West Carrollton and Saturday at Sidney.

“The next couple of days will define where we’re at,” Holderman said. “All you can do is take your lumps, go back to the drawing board and see what you need to work on and keep getting better.”

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