Roughriders’ season comes to an end in Bryan.
BRYAN — St. Marys came into Saturday’s Division II sectional championship looking for a fourth straight sectional title.
Bryan made sure that didn’t happen.
After shooting lights out in their semifinal victory against Celina on Wednesday, the Roughriders shot just 26% from the floor in the game while Bryan nearly doubled them up with a 44% clip and 13-of-16 shooting from the foul line as they limited the Riders to one-and-done opportunities with 19 defensive rebounds to shock the blue and gold with a 48-36 defeat.
The Golden Bears (17-3) advance to their first district tournament since 2012 where they will play Bath (222).
For the Roughriders, their season ends at 176.
“It was a tough night for us shooting,” Roughriders coach Jon Burke said. “Bryan probably out-rebounded us and that hurt us and they got on in transition on us and got some easy baskets.”
Neither team shot particularly well in the first half, but the Golden Bears were able to jump ahead courtesy of a pair of runs.
A Noey Ruane 3-pointer gave the Riders a 5-2 lead with 5:43 to go in the opening quarter, but Bryan’s defense tightened, forcing back-to-back turnovers and converted those into points as part of the Golden Bears’ 6-0 run to jump ahead 8-5 with 3:51 left to play.
“We got out of control because we started to force things and we had some urgency in the end but when you have good drives and you have good looks and they don’t drop, its tough to win games that way,” Burke said.
The Golden Bears were able to get breathing room in the second quarter while St. Marys shot 2-of-15 from the field — just enough for Bryan to go into the locker room with a three-possession lead.
Shallyn Miley’s bucket pushed the Bryan lead to 16-11, followed by an Allie Zimmerman trey to extend it to 19-13.
The lead remained the same before Kloee Antigo’s free throw and Brooke Lamberson’s bucket made it a 22-13 game with 2:56 left in
the first half.
“We weren’t doing a group job, especially in the first half, of stopping dribble penetration and they hit shots,” Burke said. “When we did stop dribble penetration, they would kick it out and they had one more and they hit that. Geez, you do that and you win games and that just wasn’t happening on our end of the floor.”
The Roughriders broke their 0-of-9 skid from the floor when Birt followed her missed 3-pointer to rebound it, miss her layup just to rebound it again and lay it in to close the game to seven at the half.
St. Marys hung on as long as it could thanks to the defense forcing back-to-back turnovers on Bryan to open the second half, with the Roughriders scoring on one of those turnovers when a 3-point attempt by Dieringer missed and fell into the lap of Haley Felver, who put the ball back in to close the gap to within five, 22-17, at the 6:55 mark.
And the Riders eventually chipped that seven-point halftime deficit
down to three when Tennant connected on a pair of free throws and Ruane rebounded a miss and connected on a jumper as the Riders were within a field goal, 24-21, with 5:06 left to play in the third quarter as part of a 6-2 advantage.
That was the closest the Riders got, however, as Bryan clamped down on the Roughriders’ offense, limit them to one point the rest of the quarter as the Golden Bears converted on 5-of6 free throws and got a bucket by McKendry Semer to close out the stanza on a 9-1 run for a 33-22 lead heading into the fourth quarter.
“Their size bothered us when we got into the paint and we didn’t have good shots,” Burke added.
An Elena Menker 3-pointer closed the game to within 35-25 53 seconds into the fourth quarter, but a pair of four-point swings by Bryan put the game away.
Back-to-back buckets by Miley and Brooke Lamberson pushed the Golden Bears’ lead to 37-25 followed by another pair of field goals — by Lamerson and Delilah Taylor at the 2:10 and 1:55 mark, respectively — extended the Bryan advantage to 45-33.
“We had a good gameplan but we were taking four-point swings a couple of times in the game and that’s ultimately what cost us with a 12-point deficit at the end of the game,” Burke added.
Felver, Tennant and Emma Birt played their final game in a Roughriders uniform. Four-year players in the program, the senior class amassed a 60-37 varsity record and were a part of the program’s three straight sectional titles after a nine-year drought.
“This senior class was with us that first year we beat Bath for that first sectional championship in nine years in our program and they have been with us this whole time as we went from an 11-win team, to 17 and 17 wins again this year,” “These girls have put in everything. They’re volunteered, they’ve done recycling, they’re done fundraisers, they put in the time in the summer and these seniors have put in the hard work.
“Their just hardworking kids that learned the game, learned how to dribble, learned how to use their post moves, learn how to shoot threes and learn how to play hard defense. These are hardnosed blue-collar kids that became really good basketball players and they have a grit that has been really good for our team.”