Bound By A Love Of Basketball
There was no way Stephanie Sherwood was going to miss this game. No chance. Not even a 103-degree fever, a double ear infection and a case of pink eye could stop the standout basketball player from Reitz Memorial High School from competing against her friend and former grade school teammate Katelyn Bueltel, the starting point guard for Mater Dei High School’s eventual state champion Lady Wildcats basketball team.
“It was Mater Dei,” Stephanie shrugged during a recent interview at St. John the Baptist, Newburgh, where she and Bueltel grew up together in the classroom and on the basketball court. “I didn’t want to miss it.”
So Stephanie did the only thing she could think of at the time. She hid her illness from her parents, Steve and Tammy Sherwood, and from her coach, Bruce Dockery. She also didn’t mention it to Bueltel, who guarded her throughout the Jan. 17 contest, which was won by Mater Dei.
“What were you thinking? Were you trying to get me sick?” Katelyn joked as the two friendly rivals sat shoulder-to-shoulder in the St. John basketball arena where they often dominated the competition as teammates. “You knew I was going to be guarding you!”
Although Stephanie, at 5’8”, has a nearly six-inch height advantage over Katelyn, Mater Dei ladies basketball coach Steve Goans had no qualms about allowing his point guard to defend her.
“I would have probably done the same,” said Dockery. “Nobody knows Stephanie better than Katelyn.”
A connection on the court
Stephanie and Katelyn first shared a basketball as St. John kindergarteners. Through the years, the pair led their teams to multiple league and tournament championships, culminating in a diocesan 7th and 8th grade varsity league championship in 2011, when they were eighth graders.
“You could tell real early on they were going to be the leaders,” said Katelyn’s father, Joel Bueltel, who coached the girls throughout their time as St. John Lady Tigers. “They had the most skill and feel for the game. They had a way to control a game, but they weren’t ball hogs. You knew that as long as they kept the desire to play, they would play well beyond their time at St. John.”
“They just seemed to be a little quicker and more on the ball,” noted Stephanie’s father, Steve Sherwood, a former standout basketball player for the University of Evansville who helped coached the St. John teams during the girls’ second through fourth grade seasons. “They both always stood out. They played so well together and complemented each other. Stephanie was basically everything that Katelyn wasn’t, and the other way around. But they were also good teammates.”
St. John posted an astonishing 54-8 record from 2008-11, racking up no fewer than seven season and tourney titles.
“Their fourth-grade year we had a lot of girls come out, so we had to split into two teams,” Joel said. “But any combination we came up with had to have the two of them on separate teams. Any other way, it wouldn’t have been fair.”
Joel said most of their games were lopsided affairs, so by their eighth-grade season he had scheduled games against stronger teams from Mater Dei’s feeder league, which featured talented players who later would become Katelyn’s high school teammates: Tori Schickel, Ashlen Spahn and Maura Muensterman.
“We took our lumps, but we wanted to get better competition and play games where they were pushed,” Joel said.
Looking back, the former teammates recalled their successful run through Memorial’s feeder league. Stephanie remembered one familiar play in particular: “I would go back door…”
“…and she was ready for the pass,” Katelyn said, demonstrating the connection the two still have today.
“We always knew what the other was going to do,” Stephanie said.
The girls agreed that their most memorable game together as teammates was a gut-wrenching win over a St. Wendel team led by Ashlen Spahn and Tori Schickel.
Katelyn had fouled out with three minutes remaining — “The longest three minutes of my life,” she said — and Stephanie and the other Tigers had to hold off the west siders until the final second ticked off.
“At the buzzer, she ran to me and we just hugged,” Stephanie said.
The moment was a great launching pad for what was certain to be stellar high school careers. But it was also the last time they would wear the same uniform.
A tough decision
Many expected the one-two punch — Katelyn, the quick, ball-hawking point guard, and Stephanie, the aggressive, tough-to-defend scorer — to continue their shared success on the high school hardwood at Memorial High School. But ultimately Katelyn elected to follow her older brother Brett and older sister Alexa to Mater Dei.
The decision was a difficult one. Katelyn didn’t choose Mater Dei until late July, just a few weeks shy of the beginning of the school year.
“She was on the fence a long time,” Joel said. “She looked at Memorial as a chance to go to school with her teammates. She liked Coach (Bruce) Dockery.”
But in the end, he said, family ties won out.
“Brett graduated in 2008 and was captain of the regional (basketball) champions and was Mayor of Mater Dei (the title given to the student council president),” he said. Katelyn’s older sister, Alexa, graduated from Mater Dei in 2012, and was yearbook editor and involved in student government.
Joel said he and his wife, Donna, tried not to influence Katelyn’s decision.
“It was all up to her,” Joel said. “If she had decided on Memorial, that would have been fine with us.”
Katelyn said she “was torn” between the two schools.
“I really wanted to play with Stephanie. I thought it would be cool to play with her on Senior Night,” Katelyn said. “But I watched my brother go through (Mater Dei). I grew up watching games in that gym, it was just so nice.”
Said Stephanie, “It would have been nice at Memorial, too.”
A budding rivalry
Not surprisingly, Katelyn and Stephanie have continued to flourish as high school players. Katelyn has enjoyed more team success, using her ball-handling and defensive skills to help the Lady Wildcats capture their second straight IHSAA Class 2A state title earlier this month.
While Memorial hasn’t been as dominating as its cross-town rivals during Stephanie’s first two seasons - finishing 9-12 and 10-11, respectively - Stephanie has blossomed into a team leader and college basketball prospect, averaging 14 points her freshman year and a team-leading 18 this past season. She was recently named to the All-SIAC First Team and the Junior All State honorable mention team (which is reserved for underclassmen).
While Stephanie became a varsity starter as a Memorial freshman, Katelyn was on the junior varsity her freshman season. She dressed varsity early in her sophomore year, but it wasn’t until about halfway through the season that Coach Goans decided to start her.
“Once we decided to go with a three-guard lineup, Katelyn fit in great at point guard,” Goans said. “It allowed us to move Maura Muensterman to the 3 spot (small forward) and really open up the offense.”
Katelyn wasn’t looked to for scoring, as her 2.5 points per game average attests, although she did shoot a very efficient 67 percent from the floor.
Goans said Katelyn’s smooth ball-handling skills and quickness helped nullify full-court pressure, and that “girls on other teams did not want her playing defense against them.”
Memorial’s Dockery said Stephanie’s all-around game has helped the Lady Tigers many times over the past two seasons.
“What Stephanie brings is an ability to score. She also works hard at her game; consequently, she makes her teammates better through her effort,” he said. “She plays aggressive defense, and her vision on the court is amazing. She anticipates very well.”
She’s also competitive enough to play a basketball game when most 16-year-olds would have been curled up in bed. Dockery said he was shocked to find out after the Jan. 17 game that Stephanie (who scored 14 points despite her condition) was so bad off.
“I had no idea. She hid it very well. It shows how tough she is,” he said. “She was so bad, she was in the locker room crying after the game. I felt bad because I got onto her and yelled a few things at her during the game. (Later) she told me it was OK.”
The budding rivalry of these former teammates is something that both of them say they will relish in the years to come.
“It’s weird, but I get excited!” Katelyn said. “Everyone at Mater Dei gets excited to play Reitz, but I get up when we play Memorial and Castle.”
“It’s fun,” Stephanie agreed.
“They both look forward to playing against each other,” said Steve Sherwood. “It’s kind of weird they’re not playing together, but that’s part of athletics.”
Despite their divergent paths, the two remain in touch. High school rivalries were put aside recently as Stephanie and some other St. John the Baptist alums went to Terre Haute earlier this month to cheer on Katelyn as Mater Dei played for the state title.
They even brought her a basket colored Mater Dei red, filled with candy and other treats, including a personal favorite that a 16-year-old can never be too old for: Silly String.
In addition to playing basketball for Memorial, Stephanie suits up for AAU basketball and also plays volleyball and participates in track and field at Memorial. Steve said his daughter had never picked up a shot put before her freshman year, and after five weeks she had broken the school record. She is currently ranked sixth in the state in that event and she also throws the discus and runs the 440.
Still, basketball remains her first love. “I want to play Division I basketball,” Stephanie said.
Katelyn, however, doesn’t believe she will continue basketball into college.
“I don’t think D1 is my calling. I won’t be playing beyond high school,” she said. “I want to focus on school and my career. Maybe biology or med school, but I’ve got to get past (a fear of) needles first.”
Given her determination and success on the basketball court, the odds are good she will.
