Fort Loramie girls rally to reach Division IV state title game by doing ‘little things’
The “little things” propelled the Fort Loramie girls basketball team into the Division IV state championship for the sixth time in program history.
Trailing by four points at the half, the Redskins ramped up their half-court defensive pressure in the second half en route to a 50-41 victory over Convoy Crestview in a Division IV state semifinal Thursday afternoon at UD Arena.
Junior Avery Brandewie had 22 points for the Redskins (27-2), who advanced to play Waterford (24-3) in the state championship game at 10:45 a.m. Saturday morning.
Senior Cali Gregory had 22 points, hitting four 3-pointers for Convoy Crestview (26-3).
The Redskins never led in the first half, trailing by as many as eight points. Brandewie hit a jumper at the buzzer to cut the Lady Knights’ lead to 23-19 at the half.
“We didn’t have a very good first half at all, offensively or defensively,” Fort Loramie coach Carla Siegel said. “Rebounding was terrible. We were getting outrebounded all over the place. We stressed those things in the locker room about doing the little things to win the game. We didn’t need anything miraculous. I didn’t even think we needed to score the first four points, we just needed to chip away and get the lead at the end of the third quarter and they did exactly what we needed to do.”
The Redskins responded by going on an 8-0 run to open the third quarter, grabbing a 27-23 lead. The Lady Knights went on a 10-2 run of their own to reclaim the lead at 33-29.
Brandewie scored eight straight points to open the fourth quarter and junior Victoria Mescher followed with a layup to give the Redskins a 39-33 lead with 4:18 remaining.
“It’s little things that win big games,” Siegel said. “It’s defending your girl, getting the big rebounds if you need it, setting the screens, coming off screens. I just felt like for a brief moment there in those first few minutes (of the fourth quarter) we did those little things that we always talk about to win big games.”
Waterford (24-3) beat Loudonville 41-32 to advance. Waterford is led by 6-foot-4 post Avery Wagner, who had 12 points, 15 rebounds and four blocked shots in the semifinal win. Waterford’s last state championship game in 2022.
Fort Loramie is seeking its fourth state championship. The Redskins last won the state championship in 2021.
“We know that she’s going to be blocking our shots all over the place,” Siegel said. “We’re just going to have to be aggressive and work with the ball and we’re going to have to get what I consider our sweet spot shots; we love the short corner, we love the elbow shots. Hopefully we can get more of those and attack with the ball and get some openings against their zone and their man-to-man. We’ll work on that in practice tomorrow for sure.”