Coming through…Vesailles’ Katey Litten barrels through Mariemont’s Miller Spreen to the rim for a key fourth quarter basket and a free throw. Vesailles beat Mariemont 49-37, for the Div. V district title. (Press Pros Feature Photos)
They weren’t feeling their best, and they probably didn’t play as well as they would have liked. But in the end their journey to this point in the season benefited Versailles enough for a 49-37 win over Mariemont…and a trip to the regional semi-final.
Trotwood, OH – A win’s a win no matter how you get it.
And a win in a district final game gives cause for dismissing mistakes, missed shots, turnovers, and the flu. That’s an even better a-win’s-a-win-no-matter-what scenario when you think about all the other Ohio high school basketball teams that were sitting home on Saturday.
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But…in the end Tracy White’s Versailles Tigers (17-8) did what MAC teams do on Saturday when it comes winning time.
They turned physical, they played ferocious defense, they made some key shots…and frankly, were just tougher than the Mariemont Warriors (22-3) en route to a 49-37 win in the Div. V district final at Trotwood High School.
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Mariemont was a higher seed out of Cincinnati, and one of the Cincinnati teams favored by the Enquirer to make the regional round of the tournament. But, paraphrasing Versailles coach Tracy White…they hadn’t played teams in December, January and February the likes of Marion Local, Coldwater, St. Henry, and Minster. Steel sharpens steel, they say. And basketball teams.
So yes, a win’s a win come tournament time, but it never hurts to have rabbit’s foot handy, either. And on this day Versailles overcame early turnovers of their own to visibly frustrate Mariemont into their own turnovers, some poor shot selection, and an abysmal percentage from the foul line. And they did all this with that brand of physical tournament defense that goes hand-in-glove with a rabbit’s foot.
All-League guard Sarah Stammen had been sick all week with the flu, and clearly was not at her best again on Saturday. Averaging 18 points a game, Stammen didn’t have her legs as she left even mid-range jump shots short of the rim. But it didn’t deter her from playing Tiger-Ball defense on Mariemont’s star player, guard Miller Spreen.
Sarah Stammen (above, left) harassed Mariemont’s Miller Spreen with her defense, holding Sprenn to just 6 points.
Spreen, a double-digit scorer (18 ppg) and the Warriors’ best athlete, overall, struggled to get past or through Stammen for much of the game. And as a slim Versailles lead in the first half began to compound in the second half, her frustration mounted. She had a pair of key turnovers. She forced a couple of bad shots. She picked up her fourth foul, forcing her to take her foot off the gas as she and Stammen found themselves often in a head-to-head matchup.
Stammen, for her part, gutted her way through to 7 first half points, pairing with teammate Taylor Wagner’s 9, to give Versailles a five-point lead at the end of the half…24-19.
“We had them scouted,” said Tracy White, afterwards. “And the girls did a great job in practice the last couple of days because we told them…you might see this, or you might see that. And we executed pretty well on the floor today. They (Mariemont) got to the rim a few times when we were slow to react, but we talked about keeping #4 (Spreen) from doing that. She was our main priority. So we relied on letting some other girls get away a little bit in order to take her game away.”
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Tentative at times in the first half, Versailles missed too many bunnies at the rim, despite Wagner’s 9 and Stammen’s 7. And still, given their commitment to hold Spreen in check, they led. But when they came back from halftime they found another, different, gear. They began to play more like you play when you play Marion Local.
They executed the offense, to White’s point, and got the ball in the hands of Wagner and Katey Litten, about whom one observer said, “She’s not shy about putting her shoulder in your chest and going through you to the basket.” And Wagner and Litten didn’t do it much, but they did it enough – hard physical drives to the basket that forced Mariemont to either foul or take a charge. The officials, who suddenly turned to a tournament mindset, let them play. One might think of the rabbit’s foot.
Versailles Taylor Wagner fights her way to the rim and a game-high 13 points in Saturday’s win over Mariemont.
“I just knew that it was getting physical,” said Litten after the game, flashing a knowing smile. “It was going to be hard to get to the basket, and whether the refs called it or not I had to do what I could do to get the ball up the court to the basket, or to my teammates. I know I’m known for offensive fouls, but I’m not afraid to drop a shoulder into someone. I think my brothers helped with that growing up.”
Litten and Wagner would score two physical buckets each in the second half, complemented by two from Stammen…and a bonus three-pointer from Grace Osborne, a pair of buckets from Jenna Heitkamp, and 4 of 5 shooting from the foul line.
They outscored Mariemont 13-9 in the quarter as the momentum was now clearly in their favor. The Warriors were getting to the foul line but missed four in a row at one point, and finished with a poor 7 of 15 for the game…eight points lost, considering the final deficit of twelve points.
Leading by eleven entering the fourth, the Tigers kept pounding the ball to the post, by pass or drive, and Mariemont backed off from some of the contact, allowing Wagner, Litten, and Heitkamp to score 12 of their second half total of 25 points. .
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Not flashy, but enough…all you need at tournament time. Taylor Wagner led the Tigers with 13 points, Stammen had 11, Litten finished with 9, Grave Osborne and Heitkamp each had 6, and Kynnedi Hager had 4.
Sarah Stammen gets to the rim for two of her 11 points in Saturday’s district final win over Mariemont.
For Mariemont, only Ella Garrison finished in double figures, with 11, while Alyssa Dewey had 8, and significantly…Miller Spreen had 6, a third of her daily average.
“Our schedule and our league schedule prepares us all season and the contact that comes on days like this,” added White. “And we haven’t done well consistently with playing through that contact. But today I feel like we’re finally adjusting to playing with it instead of falling on the floor, or flopping.
“And we talk a lot about free throws being important,” she added. “And we shoot them multiple times every day in practice. They can save you a game. And today, it was that.”
How good?
Good enough. And on a year where there’s nothing predictable about high school basketball except its unpredictability, next week’s regional round at Lakota East High School bodes well for teams that aren’t afraid of contact, or the circumstances. You take your chances, like Katey Litten.
And on Saturday…she won a district championship, at winning time.
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