By Matt Barnthouse

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Tomorrow, there will be a showdown. In possibly the best game of the whole women’s basketball 2010-11 season, the Greyhounds will host Ben Davis, a team has not lost a single game in over two years. In a battle of the titans, and a battle for both Metro Interscholastic Conference (MIC) and Indiana High School Athletic Association (IHSAA) supremacy, the Greyhounds look to beat the ESPN number six-ranked team in the country. Carmel is the last team to beat the Giants, and they are looking to be the first to beat them again, when Carmel defeated Ben Davis two years ago in the Regional tournament.

Though this may be the biggest regular season game of the season, practice has not changed according to varsity player and senior Lucy DeFruscio.
DeFruscio said, “We go to practice every day to try our hardest and try to get better as a team, and the fact that they’re #6 in the nation is really impressive to us, but they are just seen as another opponent in the MIC.”
Head Coach Scott Bowen seems to have the same opinion as DeFruscio. He also drew a parallel to women’s college basketball titan Connecticut, who just lost against Stanford to end its 91-game winning streak. Coincidentally, Stanford also was the last team to beat Connecticut before the streak began.
Bowen said, “We usually don’t really change a whole lot of what we do in practice. The approach we take is usually pretty consistent. Obviously our kids really know the history, and have been motivated with what happened in the college ranks when they (Connecticut) got beat by Stanford after a long streak. We have a chance to do, assuming that they stay undefeated, to do exactly what Stanford did. They were the last team to beat them and we were the last team to beat them, so hopefully our kids are motivated.”
In order to beat Ben Davis, the Greyhounds will have to contain Gatorade All-American forward Bria Goss who is arguably the Giants’ most productive player.
DeFruscio said, “She is really good and I think we have to do what we did last year, to protect the middle of the paint. If we keep her out of the paint we can have a better chance winning because she is their leading scorer right now and if we limit her to touches of the ball or whatever, and I think we can stop them because everything revolves around her.”
Bowen agreed with DeFruscio’s statement and said, “We obviously need to know where she is, she’s really good on the offensive boards. She will be a main focus when it comes to the offensive rebounding. She will definitely get our attention with probably multiple defenders finding their way guarding her.”
The girls were at one point undefeated and ranked second in the state. Then they traveled down to New Castle to participate in the Hall of Fame Classic. The team lost both games versus Evansville Memorial and Jeffersonville to drop in the state rankings.
Co-captain and junior Blaire Langlois said, “We just had a bad tournament. As a team we could not hit any shots. It was even worse because we were on (local) television and we did not play like we know we can.”
Carmel athletic teams are not accustomed to being the underdog. The football team has been a championship contender for the past five seasons., ranking number one in the state at one point in the season every year. In the 2010  season, the team reached Sectionals before losing to Fishers.
Other consistent title contenders at Carmel include the women’s swimming team, which won State championships for 24 straight years and the men’s and women’s tennis teams who have both been the title favorite for the past two seasons, with the men’s team winning the State championship this year and the women’s team winning the State championship last season.
Tomorrow night, a Carmel sports team will be in a new position: one of the underdog.
Langlois adds that the team will not change its game-plan for tomorrow. They will remain primarily in their 3-2 matchup-zone to slow down Ben Davis’ fast-paced offensive strategy.
The Greyhounds will have to stop her if they want to have any chance of winning. Senior leadership from DeFruscio and Torrie Thornton will be key to lift the Greyhounds to victory.