Hobart junior Jesse Neace’s neon-green shoes are a stark contrast to the jet-black compression sleeve covering her entire left leg.
The sleeve is a necessity for Neace, a 5-foot-3 guard who’s playing out the final weeks of this basketball season while dealing with pain in her iliotibial band, the tissue that runs down the outside of her leg.
“I started wearing it a few games ago, when the pain started,” she said. “There are times when I have to come out of the game, but I’m trying to play through it as best I can.”
Yet there were no signs of that pain on Neace’s face on Tuesday night after she hit a pair of crucial three-pointers in the fourth quarter that helped Hobart beat Kankakee Valley 57-46 in the opening game of the Class 4A Lowell Sectional.
Neace finished with 14 points, and senior guard Asia Donald, an Indiana State commit, scored 27 points to lead Hobart (14-10), which will play Portage in a sectional semifinal on Friday. Senior guard Kate Thomas paced Kankakee Valley (16-7) with 14 points.
Donald as Hobart’s leading scorer has been the standard, given she’s among the state’s top scorers at 28.8 points per game. But the events Tuesday helped validate what Hobart coach Alaina Richter has maintained all season.
“Of course, Asia is a talented player,” Richter said. “But we have other talented players on this team, and when they put it all together, it looks like a pretty dang good team.”
There were moments Tuesday when Neace was hobbling around the court, indicative of the pain caused by that nagging injury. But she still managed to fulfill her role as Hobart’s secondary scoring threat, a job she has no issues handling.
“I’m just out there for the team,” she said. “I feel like I’m the second option, but I know that my presence is sometimes needed out there.”
She has proved she can be the primary option, if necessary, as she did in a 47-30 win against Hebron on Dec. 28, when Neace led the Brickies with 23 points while Donald was out of the lineup.
Neace delivered in crunch time against Kankakee Valley, scoring eight points in the final quarter as Hobart rallied from a 35-33 deficit at the end of the third. Neace hit a 3-pointer at the 6:15 mark of the fourth to give the Brickies the lead for good, stepping into the shot with the confidence that’s carried her through the season.
“That’s what I do. I’m a shooter,” she said. “I’m just doing whatever I can when I’m out there, but Asia set me up with some great opportunities to shoot threes.”
Neace wasn’t the only player who flourished in those crucial situations for Hobart. Junior guard Emma Ortiz had a team-high 10 points in the fourth quarter despite her struggles in the first three periods, when she had just two points.
“Everyone told me to keep shooting, and I knew they were going to fall eventually,” Ortiz said.
There’s an undaunted nature to Ortiz’s game that is rooted in her earliest days of playing at multiple Boys & Girls Clubs across Northwest Indiana. She said she was often outnumbered on those courts.
“I was always playing against the boys,” she said.
But those games lit a competitive fire within Ortiz, one that carried her through those games and left her unfazed Tuesday.
“I just don’t like losing,” she said. “So if I feel like I have something to prove, I’m going to step my game up 10 times to prove it. If my shots aren’t falling, I’ll keep shooting until they fall. If my drives aren’t working, I’ll keep going until they do.”
Ortiz’s persistence, Neace’s grit and Donald’s typical contributions were part of the complete package that had Richter beaming with pride after the game.
“That was a total team effort,” Richter said. “It’s fun to watch them play together and win games together.”
Dave Melton is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.