Olmsted Falls finishes as D-I state runner-up LATE MARCH 11

In the semifinal win over Pickerington Central, it was all about Olmsted Falls’ poise to come back down the stretch.

The Bulldogs were in the same situation again in the Division I state championship game, but were unable to make it happen this time in a 69-51 loss to Princeton on March 11.

Olmsted Falls (25-4) gave up an 11-0 run to start the second quarter after trailing by one, and never fully recovered. The Vikings ended the game on a 17-6 run to pull away for the 18-point win. It was a historic season on many fronts for the Bulldogs, with the program’s first-ever regional title and state title game appearance, but they came up short in the final game.

“It’s difficult to do the right thing, and it’s difficult to make school history,” Olmsted Falls coach Jordan Eaton said. “Our girls did the right thing over and over and over again, our seniors did for four years, our juniors for three years and so on. That’s what led them to school history, doing the right thing over and over again. We know that’s a very difficult thing to do sometimes, especially for teenagers.”

The Bulldogs got down 6-2 early, but Danielle Cameron’s 3-pointers were starting to fall. The junior’s back-to-back 3’s, with a Sole Williams triple in the middle, cut the deficit down to one. Both teams scored eight points each for the rest of the quarter to keep Princeton’s lead at one, and six of the Bulldogs’ points in that stretch came from Mia Kalich. Olmsted Falls got the final basket of the first in the final seconds when Paige Kohler stole it and threw a nice pass to Cameron for a layup.

The start of the second quarter was all Vikings. They rolled to an 11-0 run to boost their lead to 12. Williams and Kali Fortson were doing damage in the first half for Princeton, combining for 21 of the team’s 34 points. Baskets from Fortson and Tahirah Ellis started the run, and Williams knocked down a jumper to extend the lead to seven. Princeton continued to thrive on the fast break, getting a triple from La’Sonja Hill and a layup from Mari Gerton.

“I think defensively, they were just getting easy buckets that we work on in practice every day,” Kohler said. “I think there’s things that we could’ve worked on to stop that. I don’t think it was offensively, I think it was more defensively because we were getting a lot of open shots.”

Kohler put an end to the run with a 3-pointer, and Cameron hit another to cut it back down to six. Olmsted Falls made five 3s in the first half, and nine for the game, but only shot 26.5% from beyond the arc on 34 attempts. Fortson and Hill both scored on a Vikings’ 6-0 run to extend the lead back up to 12, but Cameron gave Olmsted Falls some momentum with another 3-pointer in the final minute. She had 14 points in the first half alone.

The Bulldogs couldn’t pull off another comeback after trailing by nine points once again, but they looked poised to do so to begin the second half. They started attacking Princeton’s aggressive defense with backdoor cuts to the rim. Kalich had a putback on a missed backdoor layup, and she made another on a cut of her own.

Kalich didn’t stop there, she took over the game for

Olmsted Falls. She forced a steal that resulted in a Jessica Wolanin layup to cut the deficit to five. A couple of possessions later, she picked up another steal that resulted in a transition 3-pointer for Cameron to cut it to 38-34.

The Vikings kept finding an answer, and a 7-1 run extended the lead back up to nine. Princeton controlled the boards for the game, 40-29, and were able to score on consecutive second-chance opportunities. Cameron hit another 3 off of another stellar pass from Kohler, but Williams and Diawna Carter-Hartley scored for the Vikings to extend the lead back up to 10. Princeton finished with 20 second-chance points.

“They weren’t the tallest team in the world, but man, they were strong,” Eaton said. “They out-physicaled us a lot. We’re usually pretty good in that department in dealing with size, but tonight, I think we got out-physicaled early. It seemed like every time we needed the basketball or we had a really good defensive play, they ended up with it somehow.”

Kohler came alive to begin the fourth quarter with back-to-back 3’s to cut it to 52-45, but the Bulldogs were held scoreless for the next two minutes. A 10-2 run from the Vikings after Kohler’s 3’s put the game away for good, as CarterHartley scored on two andones to put on the finishing touches. She had a teamhigh 18 points with a strong end to the game.

Cameron led Olmsted Falls with 22 points, and made 12 3-pointers between the two state tournament games. Kohler finished with 17 points and five assists, and Kalich racked up another double-double with 10 points and 10 rebounds.

Behind Carter-Hartley, Fortson finished with 16 points and 12 rebounds. Hill and Williams both scored 13.