Loramie’s Avery Brandewie fights through traffic in the lane to score 2 of her game-high 20 points in Wednesday’s win over Twin Valley South. (Press Pros Feature Photos)
The fact that the final score was lopsided was immaterial. In do-or-die any win is a good win. Fort Loramie thumped Twin Valley South Wednesday to advance to another district final.
New Carlisle, OH – As it turned out Fort Loramie’s 999th all-time win, and the way they won it, was probably not what Dr. Naismith had envisioned.
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A lopsided affair in which the clock ran unabated for the final twelve minutes of the second half, Fort Loramie used all of its resources – defense, turnovers, rebounds, and points in transition – to dispatch Twin Valley South Wednesday night in a Division VII semi-final game at Tecumseh High School.
Reminiscent of those other scores you’ve seen for the past week, Loramie led 31-2 at the :18 second mark of the second quarter when Twin Valley’s Grace Childers launched one from about 24 feet and watched it go in.
Undaunted, Loramie’s Ariel Heitkamp determined to do Childers one better as she brought the ball up court on the ensuing possession and launched one from the halfcourt line as time expired – 45 feet. And she, too, watched it go in. In a span of about 18 seconds Childers and Heitkamp provided the only real highlights of an eventual 57-14 Loramie win, their 21st of the season, and just one away from being the first women’s program in OHSAA history to record 1,000 wins!
Ho-hum…you say. It’s Fort Loramie, where success in girls basketball is about as predictable as the Dow Jones going up another 50 points.
Twin Valley South Grace Childers’ scoring attempt runs aground of the Fort Loramie defense.
But this is another year, another tournament run, and a different reality for Carla Siegel and the Redskins as they lost their sterling sophomore point guard, Maddi Shatto, a month ago with an ACL tear and reconstructive surgery.
Forced to improvise, Siegel turned to her bench and her imagination in mixing and matching lineups and asking replacements to do more.
And it’s worked, the Redskins’ having won 6 of seven games during that time to finish their regular season with a 19-3 record, and a renewed energy to overcome an unforeseen obstacle in advancing to yet another regional final and state Final Four.
“Any time you lose a starting point guard after twenty games it creates a hole,” Siegel explained following Wednesday’s win. “We told the girls…we can’t replace her, so all we can do is have everyone else do a little more – a Taylor Schmitmeyer, Corynn Hoelscher, Izzy Meyer is emerging as the player we want her to be. But we’ve missed Maddi and her speed, her outside shooting, and those are things we haven’t quite replicated yet.”
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Against 13-10 Twin Valley South one hardly noticed. Before the popcorn was popped Loramie had bolted out to a 12-2 lead, pressing on every TVS possession, scraping the ball loose, and finding open cutters to the basket for point-blank scores. It was 17-2 at the end of the first quarter, and 31-2 until Childers and Heitkamp had their noticeable moments seconds before halftime…34-5, Loramie.
What it’s like to play against Loramie? Pressure and relentless hustle created 27 Twin Valley South turnovers in Wednesday’s loss.
Loramie only knows one way to play – hard – and the pressing and turnovers continued into the third quarter when at 41-5 the public address announcer informed that the rest of the game would be played with a running clock. It took exactly 14 minutes to then conclude things, plus the time between quarters, and for Siegel to put #999 behind her and focus on Middletown Christian in the District Final on Saturday. Middletown advanced Wednesday with another blowout, 63-25, over Lockland.
If Siegel and the Redskins are going to claim their fifth title in March they’re not going to have the comfort zone that they’ve known in the past. Even without Shatto, this team doesn’t have the perimeter shooting of team’s past, despite the duo of Avery Brandewie and Victoria Mescher being as experienced and resourceful as any in Siegel’s soon-to-be hall of fame career.
“I think the girls have done a good job of accepting the challenge,” said Siegel. “I mean, you saw Avery play tonight. She wants the ball, on offense and defense. You saw Victoria do some great things tonight that we haven’t seen from her. So you lean on your seniors and our seniors have definitely taken on the brunt of that void.
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“There’s a different spark right now. It’s tournament time. Every game is the big one. It’s fun. Everyone got to play tonight and the older girls get excited over seeing the underclassmen try to score. This helps build that team chemistry that we always talk about. And sometimes that gives you that little edge when you need it in the tournament.
Avery Brandewie led all scorers with 20 points, Victoria Mescher chipped in 12, and then true to Siegel’s words, seven others combined to score Loramie’s remaining 25 points. They hit 48% from the field, 55% from the line (5 of 9), and importantly…scored 20 points on 27 turnovers created with their signature pressure defense.
1,000 wins, by the way, stands as the Mount Everest of achievements in Ohio High School women’s basketball, and should they win on Saturday Fort Loramie would be the first to do it. And as much as Siegel appreciates winning and a challenge, she offered nothing over what it would mean come Saturday if…or when…they reached 1,000. All she could talk about was another District Final.
“Every game’s the biggest now,” she said as she left to go scout.
Double entendre, anyone?
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