“For a Division IV school, we play a relatively difficult schedule during the season for a reason, to get ready for these games,” Owens said after the Cougars knocked off Miami Valley Christian Academy 46-31 in a sectional semifinal at Monroe. “Frankly, when I saw the draw, I did expect to be here.
“We’ve been playing a little bit better, and that’s because we’ve started to compete. When we compete, we’re fine. We can play with any Division IV team in Cincinnati.”
Cincinnati Christian is only 10-14, but has won five of its last six games. The seventh-seeded Cougars have two tournament victories … before this year, they hadn’t won a postseason contest since 2008-09.
CCS will be back at Monroe for a sectional title matchup against fourth-seeded Fayetteville (12-11) on Saturday at 11 a.m. The Rockets rallied to beat No. 9 seed Middletown Christian 69-63 in Tuesday’s first sectional semifinal.
“We should not be 10-14. We should be like 16-8, 17-7,” Owens said. “If we would’ve competed like we did tonight, that would be our record. But if we win three games in the tournament, no one’s going to remember the regular season. That’s what I told the girls when the tournament started, and I think that’s a fair assessment.”
Lyric Harris led the way against sixth-seeded MVCA (13-7) with 14 points and 12 rebounds. Hannah Randall added 10 points.
The Cougars never trailed against the Lions, but it was a 32-28 affair after three quarters. CCS then scored 14 straight points, and Michelle Lee’s 3-pointer with 6.4 seconds left was the only thing that kept MVCA from getting blanked in the fourth stanza.
“We had some ups and downs, but we fixed our mistakes at the end,” said Harris, a freshman guard. “We really came back in the fourth quarter. The second half really matters.”
Lee put up 10 points and 11 rebounds for the Lions. Alecea Grosjean marked eight points, and Dawsyn Vilardo pulled down 10 boards.
MVCA plays in the Ohio Valley Athletic League, but will be joining Cincinnati Christian in the Miami Valley Conference in 2017-18.
“It’s the best thing for the school at this point to kind of step it up and move forward,” Lions coach Julie Vilardo said. “One of the challenges we’ve faced this year is that the league is a little weak. We try to play some better teams in nonleague games, but we didn’t face a ton of real tough competition. That hurts us when we get to this point.
“I think you’ve got to give Cincinnati Christian credit. They did a nice job of shutting down our high scorer — Lee averages about 21 points a game. We had an off night shooting, but some of that is good defense.”
CCS got six points apiece from Allie Statzer and Grace Edmonston. Statzer had seven rebounds, Kylee Miller grabbed six, and Randall, Edmonston and Tori Byndon each chipped in five.
“It was a sloppy game at times, but I thought we did OK. Our energy level was good,” Owens said. “We had players on the bench that are typically in the game. I could’ve played them when they had three fouls each in the third quarter, but with the lead — in my opinion — there was no reason to do that.”
The Cougars are expecting a difficult matchup against Fayetteville, a team with considerable postseason tradition.
“We have to dig deep. We have to realize we want it more than them,” Harris said. “We have to say to ourselves that we are better and get out there and work harder.”
“Anytime you can play Georgetown and Fayetteville in the same tournament, two storied programs like that, it’s exciting,” Owens said. “I think we have a chance. I know what’s coming. We’ll be prepared.”
The Rockets survived a shootout against Middletown Christian (10-13), fighting back from a trio of nine-point deficits in the second half.
Fayetteville fired in 13 treys, getting six from Cecilia Murphy and four from Taylor Cornett. They scored 29 and 17 points, respectively.
“I thought we played great,” MCS coach Ken Yablonsky said. “I knew it would be high scoring, but I didn’t anticipate they would knock down the percentage of shots they did. Early in the game, we were kind of daring them to shoot from the outside, packing it in a little bit to take away their 6-3 girl. They hit their outside shots, so in the second half we adjusted and came out, and they still hit their shots. So now what do you do?”
The Rockets drilled four 3-pointers in the first two minutes of the fourth quarter to move ahead for good.
“We haven’t hit 13 threes in a game this season. We don’t usually shoot a lot of them,” Fayetteville coach Toby Sheets said. “I think it was more just a catch-up effort by the kids. It wasn’t something I said to start launching threes, but when they were going in, I wasn’t going to stop them.”
The Eagles tossed in eight triples, four apiece from Aubriana Bellard and Kayla Arington. Those juniors came up huge for Middletown Christian — Bellard tallied 34 points and 16 rebounds, while Arington had 22 points and five boards.
“When I went out there, I had the mind-set to win,” said Bellard, the top scorer in the Metro Buckeye Conference. “I wanted to want this win more than the other team as a whole, so I was coming out there trying to make the best decisions I could, pass the ball to my teammates and not let the other team get second-chance offensive rebounds because that’s how we lose a lot of times.
“I’m just really proud of my teammates for leaving it all out there on the floor. We didn’t pull through, but I’m thankful for my coaches and my teammates and all of our supporters for keeping us going and pushing.”
Arington, a transfer from Lakota East, played the last 13 games of the season.
“I love it here,” she said. “It’s a better opportunity for me, a good school with good basketball. I’m very happy. I wish we would’ve gotten the win today, but we played our hearts out.”
MCS gave itself a shot to win down the stretch, closing the gap to 66-63 on Bellard’s driving layup with 1:39 left. The Rockets were just 3 of 8 from the line the rest of the way, but that was enough.
Hannah Wiederhold scored 12 points and Savannah Lynch had 12 rebounds for Fayetteville, a member of the Southern Hills Athletic Conference.
“I think our tradition of being winners in the past does make a difference,” Sheets said. “These girls want to represent. We’ve got a lot of alumni that come back and watch, so it means something to them.”
He said Bellard and Arington earned his respect.
“Coming in, I felt maybe their schedule wasn’t as strong, but those two can play. They’re for real,” Sheets said. “I tried to stay with a zone defense, but man, those two girls were hitting shots. We’re not real deep. To tell you the truth, we were just trying to keep it close until the end, and we felt we could then go man and we would have an advantage. But we ended up going man when we went down nine. We just had to.”
Middletown Christian is turning its focus to the future. The Eagles are losing only two seniors, Jada Long and Tiffany Kim.
This was Yablonsky’s first season at the MCS helm.
“I’m very proud of my team,” he said. “We walked in the gym with three players that very first practice. We didn’t know if we were going to have a team. But these guys worked their tails off, even the bench players. I wanted to be .500, but I also wanted the players to enjoy the sport and enjoy their teammates and want to come back next year. That’s how I told the AD I would judge myself, so to me, it’s a success.”
“Ten wins from a school that didn’t even really know they were going to have a basketball team, it’s just great,” Bellard said. “A lot of these girls are in their first year of playing basketball. We’re coming back strong next year to be even better.”
Cincinnati Christian 12-7-13-14—46
Miami Valley Christian Academy 5-8-15-3—31
CINCINNATI CHRISTIAN (10-14): Kylee Miller 2 0 4, Anna Armour 1 0 3, Hannah Randall 5 0 10, Tori Byndon 1 1 3, Lyric Harris 6 2 14, Grace Edmonston 1 4 6, Allie Statzer 2 2 6. Totals: 18-9-46
MIAMI VALLEY CHRISTIAN ACADEMY (13-7): Laura Vilardo 2 2 6, Alecea Grosjean 3 0 8, Michelle Lee 3 3 10, Anna Reichard 2 0 5, Dawsyn Vilardo 0 2 2. Totals: 10-7-31
3-pointers: C 1 (Armour), M 4 (Grosjean 2, Lee, Reichard)
Middletown Christian 18-21-13-11—63
Fayetteville 17-19-13-20—69
MIDDLETOWN CHRISTIAN (10-13): Tiffany Kim 1 0 2, Ellie Veal 0 2 2, Aubriana Bellard 13 4 34, Jada Long 1 1 3, Kayla Arington 9 0 22. Totals: 24-7-63
FAYETTEVILLE (12-11): Savannah Lynch 1 0 2, Taylor Cornett 5 3 17, Cecilia Murphy 7 9 29, Margo Thompson 1 2 4, Haley Moore 2 0 5, Hannah Wiederhold 5 0 12. Totals: 21-14-69
3-pointers: M 8 (Bellard 4, Arington 4), F 13 (Murphy 6, Cornett 4, Wiederhold 2, Moore)
About the Author