Springboro’s Bryn Martin scored at will against the Tigers, such as this time when she earned a blocking foul call on Berry Wallace late in the second half. (Press Pros Feature Photos by Brian Bayless)
Junior Ms. Basketball finalist Bryn Martin scored a Division I state tournament record with 38 points as Springboro downed Pickerington Central 63-54 in a state semifinal.
Dayton, OH – After Springboro junior sharpshooter Bryn Martin delivered her best impersonation of Caitlin Clark Friday night, Pickerington Central coach Chris Wallace offered no regrets or “what-ifs.”
“In all my years of coaching against some of the top players and top teams in the country nobody has ever scored 38 (points) on us,” he said. “All I can say is my hat’s off to her. Maybe we could have tried a few more things to stop her, but I don’t know how many uncontested shots she made. It wasn’t many.”
Martin’s performance, which broke a 41-year-old Division I state tournament game record, powered unranked Springboro to a 63-54 semifinal win over second-ranked Central before a crowd of 5,128 in University of Dayton Arena.
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Veteran central Ohio columnist Steve Blackledge writes the OCC and sports at large for Press Pros.
It marked the second straight season that the Tigers (25-4) – seven-time state champions – were bounced in the semis.
The Southwest District Player of the Year and Ohio Ms. Basketball finalist, Martin put on a clinic – and did so against a Central team yielding just 35.4 points per game against a national-caliber schedule.
A 6-foot-1 guard, Martin went 11-of-23 from the field with three three-pointers, sank 13 of 14 free throws, grabbed eight rebounds, made four steals and handed out two assists. And, what’s more, she drew 10 Central fouls.
“I just took whatever came to me,” said Martin, who already owns some 30 Division I scholarship offers. “Make no mistake about it … it was a team win. My teammates set me some amazing screens. The only thing that matters to me is winning.”
Blossom Wallace tries to lock down Springboro’s Bryn Martin during the D1 state semifinal game at UD Arena. Martin would drop in 38 points on the night , sending the Tigers home.
Wallace knew Martin was the driving force for Springboro. She came in scoring 20.8 points per game.
“We’ve faced some real good shooters and we certainly knew what she was capable of from the films we saw, but our goal was to limit her touches and apparently we didn’t do that well enough,” Wallace said,. “The bottom line was we didn’t defend well enough. Going in, we knew we couldn’t give up 60 and beat them.”
To their credit, the Tigers – pressing and trapping with an urgency – whittled a nine-point deficit to 50-49 with 3:47 remaining on a three-point shot by Kennady Gordon.
But Chloe Dowing nailed an ice cold three-point shot at the 3:20 mark to temporarily quell the threat.
“Coach said in the timeout before that, ‘We need a three out of you,’ and at that moment I just knew I had to take it,” Gordon said.
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Central still had plenty of chances down the stretch, forcing turnover after turnover in the backcourt, but couldn’t capitalize enough to get over the hump.
The Tigers (25-4) shot just 35.8 percent from the field (30.4 percent from three-point range) and committed 16 turnovers of their own.
“We never quit and we were never out of it until the end,” Wallace said. If we had just made a couple extra stops and made a couple more shots, we might have turned the corner. As I think back, we had some really good looks and they didn’t go in. It was right there on our fingertips but we couldn’t put it in when we needed to.”
Berry Wallace fights for possession during the D1 State Semifinal game against Springboro. The Tigers fell 63-54.
Martin sank 4 of 4 foul shots and Aniya Trent turned a press break into an easy layup as Springboro salted away its first state tournament win since 1978, when it eventually fell to Hartley 58-56 in the Division II title game.
Springboro (24-5) will face ninth-ranked Olmsted Falls (25-3) – a 62-38 winner over Rocky River Magnificat in the title game at 8:30 p.m. Saturday.
Panthers coach Mike Holweger said installation of an extended 2-3 zone defense paid huge dividends. Central’s Ms. Basketball finalist, Illinois-bound Berry Wallace, was limited to seven points. Wallace will play in the McDonald’s national all-star game on April 2 in Houston.
“They have a lot of weapons and we thought if we might be able to clog the lanes, we could gain an advantage on the boards,” Holweger said. “I thought beforehand the game would come down to rebounds and I see we had a (30-29) edge.”
Rylee Bess scored 16 points while Zoe Coleman and Blossom Wallace added 11 each for Central, which fell behind after a 15-2 Springboro run spanning seven minutes and couldn’t quite recover.
Pick Central’s Faith King dials in on Springboro’s Chloe Downing during the first half of play at Dayton’s UD’s Arena.
“Obviously, we’re disappointed, but we leave here with no regrets,” Chris Wallace said. “This was the greatest group and funnest group I’ve ever gotten to coach.”
Bess said she will remember the relationships and good times the team experienced, including a 20th district championship and 15th regional title.
“This was a really tight-knit team and we put everything we had in this,” she said.
