State championships are the expectation at Fort Loramie, so getting within two games of that via a regional title felt plenty satisfying to the Redskins. (PressPros Feature Photo by Julie Wright and Sonny Fulks).
Unleashing its defensive dominance after a shaky start, top-ranked Fort Loramie frustrated Marion Local throughout most of the first half and sped away to a comfortable regional championship victory.
Vandalia, OH – The thing about an avalanche is that you hear it before you see it. And by the time you hear it, it’s too late.
If only Fort Loramie’s defensive pressure were as humane.
The Redskins’ coverage can be every bit as smothering as being buried under several tons of snow, but their brand of basketball suffocation comes with no audible warning.
Not unless you count the alarms of opposing coaches who’ve long tried apprising their teams just how cumbersome and unrelenting the Redskins can be.
“It’s what they do,” Marion Local coach Beth Streib said Saturday after a 44-22 loss to Loramie in the girls Division IV regional championship at the Student Events Center. “It’s who Fort Loramie is.”
Count Streib the latest to voice considerable pre-game concern, only to lack enough momentum-blunting timeouts to forestall what Loramie does when at its best.
Forcing eight turnovers in 10 Marion Local possessions that spanned the end of the first and start of the second quarters, Loramie shook off a slow start to score 13 unanswered points and claim a 14-5 lead.
But the Redskins were just getting warmed up.
Marion Local’s Mya Eckstein and her teammates felt the pressure all day from Fort Loramie’s defense, applied here by Victoria Mescher.
Loramie didn’t allow Marion to score the last 4:40 of the first quarter or for the entire second quarter, resulting in a halftime score of 24-5.
If that didn’t assure the outcome, the seven consecutive Marion turnovers to start the second half – and resultant 8-0 Loramie run – certainly did.
“I was concerned about us starting off in our full-court press because we just played on Thursday night,” Redskins coach Carla Siegel said. “We were exhausted and I didn’t know if our legs would hold up today. So we decided to just do our half-court defense, which is pretty good, and wait until we got a lead, then sprinkle in our full-court defense here and there.
“But once we started rolling, it was like, ‘OK, we’re good.’ When I have players look at me and say, Red? I mean, they’re calling it. I was like, ‘OK, go ahead.’ That tells me they were hungry and excited today.”
Marion finally broke its prolonged drought on Avae Unrast’s conversion off an out-of-bounds play with 5:36 left in the third quarter, but by then her team was in a 32-5 cavern.
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“We were back on our heels,” Streib said. “We weren’t looking down the floor as much. We were doing too much standing. Those are basically the things Fort Loramie forces you to do. You have to combat it by being aggressive and we didn’t do that.”
The title ends two years of frustration for Siegel and her seven seniors at the regional level, shedding a semifinal loss two years ago and an in-and-out, two-point, buzzer-beater defeat to eventual state champion Tri-Village last season.
Fort Loramie’s Summer Hoying finds space inside for two of her nine points.
“We told the girls yesterday and today that they needed to have fun on the floor, because I don’t think they had fun on Thursday night,” Siegel said of a 33-29 struggle against Russia in the regional semifinals. “You saw more emotion, more smiles, more handshakes and things like that going on.”
Unrast, the Midwest Athletic Conference player-of-the-year, led Marion with nine points. Senior Allison Dirksen couldn’t provide the inside assistance she did Thursday with 18 in a semifinal win against Mississinawa Valley because of Loramie’s swarming defense, finishing with four points.
Loramie got 11 from Avery Brandewie, 10 from Victoria Mescher and nine from Summer Hoying.
“Our defense is known as being super aggressive and tenacious,” Hoying said. “That throws a lot of teams off because they can’t handle that pressure. It’s not just on the perimeter, it’s in the post, too, because we have lots of people pinching into the post and working together to help me out.”
A dominant second and third quarter allowed Fort Loramie coach Carla Siegel some time to relax down the stretch.
Still, there were those anxious moments at the outset when Loramie missed its first five shots and turned it over three times.
“I think we all got a little nervous at the beginning, but we stayed strong and didn’t give up,” senior Skyler Albers said. “Coach always says, ‘Defense wins.’ That’s what enabled us to pull away.”
Now Loramie (26-2) will take on Convoy Crestview (26-2) in the state semifinals at 1 p.m. Thursday.
Marion (20-8) will lose seniors Dirksen, Audrey Eckstein and Audrey Winner from its starting lineup.
“They’ve been great leaders the whole way,” Streib said. “They’ve led by example, as well as being vocal. They’ve set the new standard. We’ve made it to the regionals two years in a row. Hopefully, the young ones see that and learn from that and see how much fun it is so that we can get back.”
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