Loramie (28-1) suddenly looked like the top ranked team in the state where they had played all season. In the last 58 seconds of the first quarter, Dana Rose hit a 3-pointer, Clara Gephart made a jump in the lane and Ava Sholtis followed the buzzer with a miss. The lead was 17-9 and by mid-second quarter Loramie was leading 34-14.
Dana Rose of Fort Loramie shoots against Bailey Gregory of Convoy Crestview in the Division IV semifinals on Thursday. Loramie won 66-24 and Rose scored 22 points. Jeff Gilbert / CONTRIBUTION
Loramie persisted, making easy and difficult shots and beating Crestview 66-24 on Thursday at the UD Arena to reach their first state final since 2015 when they won their second title.
“You heard me say it eight million times in your career,” said Siegel. “That top corner, if you hit that, the ball goes almost 99 percent of the time. I think the nerve was there and I knew we would come out of it. “
Loramie meets McDonald (23-2) in the state finals at UD on Saturday at 10.45 a.m. McDonald beat Waterford 57-29 in Thursday’s second semi-final. The Redskins stayed to watch, and last year’s missed opportunity was still driving them.
“We used that as a fire in our bellies and that can give us a little more determination to go out and finish what we didn’t achieve last year,” said Hoelscher.
Rose led Loramie with 22 points, Hoelscher with 12 and Corynn Heitkamp with 10. Sholtis and Colleen Brandewie each scored six points from the bench and together scored eight rebounds and seven assists.
“Everyone brings five great players to the ground at the state tournament,” said Siegel. “If you can rely on your bank, this is an added bonus when you can go eight times deep and not lose anything on offense or defense.”
The defense also started the Redskins and calmed their nerves. They forced 16 sales in the first half, 24 for the game and scored 34 points from those sales. Crestview only made three of 20 shots in the second half, shooting 30.6% for the game.
“We thought our defense would cause them some problems,” said Siegel. “I didn’t expect it to cause so many problems.”
Loramie’s long track record for the past 22 years under seal means there are no secrets about what to expect. Crestview trainer Mark Gregory went over the scouting report when discussing what happened in the game.
“You’re a saw – you just have so many beautiful pieces,” he said. “They play so hard, they are long, they defend well, they move the basketball so well, they bounce off. And those are the things that we knew we had to do. We had to play almost a perfect game today to win this. “
Loramie didn’t have to be perfect. All you had to do was calm down and do what the scouting report says.
