Columbus Grove’s Lauryn Auchmuty fights to keep control of the ball against Toledo Christian’s Mackenzie Royal-Davis, (left) and Kaylona Butler during Saturday’s Division IV regional final at the Elida Fieldhouse. See more high school basketball photos at LimaScores.com.
Richard Parrish | The Lima News
It begins with defense was more than just a familiar cliché in Toledo Christian’s 43-21 win over Columbus Grove in the Division IV girls basketball regional championship game at Elida on Saturday afternoon.
While it wasn’t the whole story it was a huge part of it.
The Bulldogs’ 21 points were a season low. They shot 22 percent (8 of 35) and only two players scored against the Eagles’ defense – Lauryn Auchmuty (14 points) and Nicole Nesby (7 points).
Toledo Christian (22-4) advanced to the Division IV state semifinals at the University of Dayton Arena on Thursday. Columbus Grove finished its season 18-9.
The Eagles were regional runner-up to New Knoxville last season and brought their top six players back from that team this year.
Their four losses this season were to two Division I teams who reached regional tournaments (Dublin Coffman and Rocky River Magnificat), a Division I team which was a district runner-up (Anthony Wayne) and Division IV state qualifier Tri-Village.
“When you play a schedule like we play you’ve got to play defense,” Toledo Christian coach Tim Wensink said.
Columbus Grove coach Brian Schroeder said, “They’ve got size inside, they’ve got athleticism. I thought they were longer and quite a bit more athletic than us and that gave us issues. They rotated some defenders on Lauryn Auchmuty and did a nice job on her and that kind of lagged us down offensively.”
Toledo Christian’s offense also had a banner day, especially in the first half when four of the Eagles’ starters hit 3-pointers and Kaylona Butler and Jordan Rosales each had a pair of them on the way to a 25-12 halftime lead.
“We knew it would be a tall task coming into today,” Schroeder said. “We knew we’d probably have to hold them to around 45 points and try to scrounge together enough points to hang with them.”
Kaylona Butler led Toledo Christian with 17 points and Mackenzie Royal-Davis had 10 points.
Holding down Toledo Christian’s leading scorers, Kendall Braden (22.4 points a game) and Royal-Davis (15.4 points a game), was part of Columbus Grove’s game plan and that effort was somewhat successful.
But the Eagles found other answers.
“Obviously, our game plan was to take away Braden and Royal-Davis and try to force some of their other players to hit contested shots. I didn’t think we did as good a job as we could have of contesting those shots. But it’s more than just two players. They have five or six nice players and their other players stepped up when they got an opportunity,” Schroeder said.
“They’re just an extremely talented team. Obviously, they’re very talented and athletic,” he said.
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Reach Jim Naveau at 567-242-0414.
