It didn’t take long for Crown Point sophomore Sidney Hale to impress first-year coach Brad Stangel.
Hale’s most salient skills got Stangel’s attention from the outset.
“From day one, she’s been the perimeter defensive stopper,” Stangel said. “She’s usually drawing the toughest assignment, and if she doesn’t draw the toughest assignment, she generally guards the ball, the point guard.
“Her role was defined at the beginning. You could see how athletic she is and how strong she is. But she’s also very competitive. Those are all things that you look for when you try to find somebody who can really guard.”
A former gymnast, Hale takes pride in her defense. The 5-foot-7 guard/forward is averaging 6.5 points, 4.3 rebounds, 2.2 assists and 2.1 steals for the Bulldogs (23-4), who will play Norwell (23-4) in the semifinals of the Class 4A LaPorte Semistate on Saturday.
“I take that role with a passion,” she said. “I know that maybe if I have good defense, it spreads to the whole team. If I have good energy starting out on defense, it spreads to the whole team and makes the whole team want to play better.
“It’s definitely developed. I realized going into this year how much of a role I could play in this team. It has always been there, but this year I got my opportunity and my chance to really show out. I’ve tried to put it all out there and give it my all.”
Not to say Hale doesn’t have offensive ability too. She scored 13 points during Crown Point’s regional win against Penn last week, the second most on the team behind star sophomore guard Ava Richie’s 14. Hale added had five rebounds, four assists and two steals.
But Stangel also praised Hale’s efforts defending Jillian Sanderson, Penn’s standout freshman guard.
“That game that she played on Saturday was a fantastic game, not just because she scored 13 points, but because she had to guard Sanderson,” Stangel said. “She guarded her for about 27 of the 32 minutes, and she ran around and she made it hard.
“Watching film in here, you can watch Sid getting bumped around, banged around, and she’s just working her butt off. She’s a really competitive kid. She figures out what you’re trying to do to her, and we go that way with it. She’s matured a lot throughout the season, and that’s been our team in general.”
Junior forward/center Ivy Henderson also highlighted Hale’s contributions on the defensive end.
“Sidney is a very athletic player who has incredible on-the-ball defense,” Henderson said. “She’s the most consistent defender we have and gets steals from some of the best point guards in the state. She’s always able to shut down the best ball handlers on the opposing team, ultimately securing wins.”
Hale has scored 13 points three times this season. That total is only one point shy of the career-high 14 she scored in the Bulldogs’ sectional semifinal win against Hammond Central.
“The offensive game is coming,” Stangel said. “It’ll get there with the more varsity experience she has. She’s had some big games for us. … It’s coming and coming. We’ve really liked the progress she’s made as an individual player. She’s a big asset for us.”
After playing limited varsity minutes as a freshman last season, Hale tried to expedite her progress in the offseason. She also played catcher for Crown Point’s junior varsity softball team last year, although she doesn’t intend to return to that sport this spring in order to concentrate on basketball.
“In the offseason, I just put in my work and focused on my offense,” Hale said. “Obviously, my offense has improved tremendously this past year. I was just always in the gym with my dad.”
The Bulldogs’ victory against Penn secured their first regional title since 2022 and avenged a regular-season loss, which they also did in a sectional opener against Morton.
The winner of the semistate semifinal against Norwell, which ended the regular season ranked No. 6 in the state coaches poll and was the Class 3A state champion last season, will play either No. 18 Northridge (20-7) or McCutcheon (22-5) in the semistate final. Crown Point, which last won a semistate title during its state championship run with Jessica Carrothers and Lilly Stoddard in 2021, defeated both of those teams during the regular season.
“It’s crazy,” Hale said of the regional title. “I still don’t really believe it because it’s so crazy. But we really pushed hard, and now we realize we really have a chance of going to state. We’re really focusing and locking in for this whole week to play our hardest in Saturday’s games.
“We’ve all been playing together for so long, a good amount of us. It’s hard sometimes with us being so young. A lot of people think we’re going to just break down and give up. But it helps us focus and stay together even more. It makes us stick and glue together even more. We’re such great friends out of basketball, too, and that just helps us too.”
