Panthers fall in state title game, vow to return
Standing somberly and shedding tears at the end of the UD Arena floor — runner-up medals around their necks — the Springboro basketball team watched the Olmsted Falls girls happily collect their championship medals and trophy.
Somewhere in the thoughts of Springboro’s non-seniors had to be next year. Because after 10 minutes together in the locker room, they eagerly talked about the 2024-2025 season. It was already time to move on from Saturday night’s 52-45 loss in the Division I state championship game.
“It stings, obviously, but I feel like we’re very young, and we talked about what we got next year,” said junior Bryn Martin, the Panthers’ best player and a Ms. Basketball finalist this year. “We’re going to get better. We’re more hungry now than we’ve ever been, and seeing that we can get to this point gives us a lot of confidence.”
The Panthers (24-6) still wanted badly to win a 16th straight game. They were in it all the way, led by as many as seven early, and tried to ride Martin’s scoring to another victory. After setting a Division I semifinal record with 38 points in Friday’s semifinal win, Martin scored 22 points to finish with 60 and one point shy of the Division I scoring record for two games.
Martin’s long 3-pointer with 46 seconds left cut Olmsted’s lead to 46-43. But the Panthers couldn’t hit another big shot and Olmsted Falls (26-3) finished them off with free throws.
“We wanted to definitely win this year for our seniors,” junior center Aniya Trent said. “We’ve been with them for a long time, but we’re going to come back next year and win it for them.”
That’s what Olmsted did. A year after losing in the final, the Bulldogs won their first state title. They did it with great ball movement to make a Division I finals record 10 3-pointers and by playing relentless defense.
“They’re very up in you and they’re very aggressive with it,” said Trent, who scored 12 points. “We knew that coming into the game that they were going to be aggressive.”
The Panthers committed only 11 turnovers but shot only 40% and made only 4 of 15 3-point attempts.
“They pushed us high,” Holweger said. “We just were not able to get into our sets. Our adjustment at halftime was to move, be more active, be more athletic and try to find gaps. It was tough sledding, and that’s a credit to them and the culture that they have.”
The culture Holweger established in his first year carried the Panthers to the second state final in school history and first since 1978. And it started in practice.
“We were one of the best practice teams I’ve ever been a part of, one of the most supportive teams with each other that I’ve ever, ever been a part of,” senior Chloe Downing said.
As the players emerged from the locker room, many eyes were still damp. After his players talked, Holweger reflected on the last postgame talk with his team.
“Awesome ... sad ... you see it with me,” he said. “When you invest like these kids invested, it’s supposed to hurt. There are a lot of tears, a lot of hugs, a lot of ‘I love yous’, and that’s why we do this. We want to lead extraordinary lives, and what that team did this year is nothing short of extraordinary. And like I told them, the only place we lost was on the scoreboard.”
Once the Panthers won the Greater Western Ohio Conference, they had the confidence to make a tournament run. They got over the hump of three straight district final losses to Mason with a district final win over Cincinnati Winton Woods, then regional wins over Mason and Cincinnati Mount Notre Dame in double overtime.
“We all wanted it so much for each other that it got us over that hump, pushed us through that double overtime, pushed us through the Mason win,” Downing said. “It’s just going to keep growing.”
Just before the Panthers left the locker room they could be heard happily singing “Happy Birthday.” Lydia Gabbard, a junior who plays off the bench, turned 17 Saturday. She’s known for a while that the state final, if her team could get there, was on her birthday.
“When we got here it was more like, it’s the state championship, we can celebrate my birthday after,” she said as she tried in vain to stop the tears. “But regardless of the outcome, I love this team so, so much, and I wouldn’t have wanted to spend my birthday any other way.”