ST. MARYS – Once Lima Central Catholic had completed its 68-29 win over Waynesfield-Goshen in its girls basketball sectional opener on Wednesday night, the focus quickly turned to the next game, a sectional championship game against Marion Local on Saturday night at St. Marys.
Rosie Williams scored 21 points and had 15 rebounds and Olivia Stolly scored 15 points to lead LCC (14-9).
The Thunderbirds raced out to an 11-1 lead in the game’s first two minutes with Stolly scoring all 11 points.
The lead grew to 43-19 at halftime and to 53-23 after three quarters before the running clock rule kicked in late in the fourth quarter.
Jordan Elliott scored 10 points to lead Waynesfield-Goshen (4-19).
“I thought we played as well as we could. We knew we had to go out and play to get to Saturday night. It is a really good team we’re going to get to play,” LCC coach Ron Williams said.
“We’ve increased our wins every year and we’re getting better but now we have a chance to play Saturday night in a game that can really show what we’ve been able to do. It’s a really big one for us Saturday night,” he said.
“We don’t play a lot of teams where we’re favored by a bunch. But when we do I really talk to them about doing the things we do well. I think we did that,” Williams said about Wednesday night’s win.
“We got the ball inside, we played defense, we tried to make sure we rebounded. If we do the same things we do against the teams we’re supposed to beat that’s what we have to do. And that’s what we did tonight. We played well and now we’ll get ourselves ready for Saturday night.”
Marion Local 63, Upper Scioto Valley 28
The Midwest Athletic conference co-champion Flyers (19-4) did what was expected in the first game at St. Marys against winless USV (0-21).
Marion Local jumped out to a 24-1 lead after one quarter and was in control all the way in a game in which a running clock was in place in the final minute.
Sammy Hoelscher scored 16 points to lead Marion Local and Heidi Rethman had 10 points. Hoelscher got 14 of her 16 points in the first half and Rethman had eight of her 10 points in the first two quarters.
Upper Scioto Valley was led by Haylie Martin with 13 points, all but two of them in the second half.
Eleven players scored for the Flyers, who shot 47 percent on field goals (28 of 60), had 30 rebounds and turned the ball over 12 times. Upper Scioto Valley shot 41 percent (11 of 27) on field goals, had 13 rebounds and turned the ball over 26 times.
.neFileBlock {
margin-bottom: 20px;
}
.neFileBlock p {
margin: 0px 0px 0px 0px;
}
.neFileBlock .neFile {
border-bottom: 1px dotted #aaa;
padding-bottom: 5px;
padding-top: 10px;
}
.neFileBlock .neCaption {
font-size: 85%;
}
