Big Walnut 6-foot-2 standout Sydney Mobley towered over Cincinnati Mount Notre Dame with 23 points, but the Golden Eagles fell short of the state title game, losing to the Cougars, 55-43. (Press Pros Feature Photos by Logan Howard)
Defensive-minded Mount Notre Dame drew up a unique — and effective — game plan designed to both neutralize Ms. Basketball winner Sydney Mobley and harass Big Walnut’s guards on the perimeter. It resulted in a 10th state title game berth.
Vandalia, OH – When Cincinnati Mount Notre Dame coach Drew Fladung was done absorbing film of Big Walnut 6-foot-2 superstar Sydney Mobley, he couldn’t help but gulp.
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“You see her on film and immediately wonder, ‘What are we going to do with that?’ She’s just a different animal in all the things she can do. She’s everything as advertised.”
That said, Fladung concocted a defensive game plan for Friday’s Division II state semifinal at Vandalia-Butler High School that the Cougars had never used and Big Walnut had never seen.
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Mobley lived up to her Ms. Basketball winning credentials, but Mount Notre Dame made sure to make life miserable for her teammates.
The end result was a 55-43 win by Mount Notre Dame, sending the top-ranked Cougars (27-0) to their 10th title game Saturday at 5:15 p.m. against Akron Hoban (21-4) at University of Dayton Arena. A ninth championship would tie Africentric for most across all divisions.
For fifth-ranked Big Walnut (23-5), it was a bittersweet ending to a historic second straight final four run. The Golden Eagles were ousted by eventual champion Cincinnati Winton Woods 58-55 in overtime on the same floor last March. The team has gone 69-11 the past three seasons, its best stretch ever.
“It was really big just to get back to this spot and we’re grateful for it … but obviously we wanted to take the next step,” Golden Eagles fourth-year starting senior point guard Lexi Federer said.
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Except for a brief 4-4 tie early, Mount Notre Dame led this contest from the get-go, relying on its aggressive defense to stymie Big Walnut, which came in scoring 62.2 points per game but went home with its second lowest output of the season.
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“They surprised us with the type of defense they threw at us,” Golden Eagles fourth-year coach Carey Largent said. “They ended up deviating completely from the 1-3-1 (zone) we had seen them play all year. We’ve seen teams throw just about every type of defense to try to stop Sydney, but I didn’t expect them to faceguard or chase her instead of collapsing on her. They were guarding the perimeter really well to keep us from entering the ball to her or getting some perimeter shots.”
Big Walnut’s Alexi Morris knocks the ball away from Notre Dame’s Jayda Johnson.
Added Mobley, a four-star recruit with 42 major college offers, “I haven’t seen a defense like that before. It shocked us a little, to tell you the truth.”
Although Mobley lived up to her billing with 23 points on 10-of-15 field goal shooting with an array of spin moves, hook shots and power drop steps, she was about the only thing going for Big Walnut. Not until the second minute of the second quarter did a second teammate reach the scoreboard, and by that time Mount Notre Dame had taken an 18-12 lead.
Fladung expounded on his defensive approach.
“The game plan was to defend as a team,” he said. “The name of the game was to limit Mobley with everyone playing a role. We didn’t feel comfortable allowing her to get open and do her thing, so we used some zone principles to rotate when she got the ball to the paint. She’s such a threat, both inside and outside.”
The player primarily assigned to faceguard Mobley, 6-1 sophomore wing Carine Harris, had the game of her life, scoring a career-high 18 points – 12 points over her average.
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“It was tough. We were going neck and neck all night,” Harris said. “I take a lot of pride in my defense and when I got hot, that momentum only carried over to my offense. I’m not our biggest scorer, but it was like someone needed to step up and take over.”
Senior guard Bella Veith did her damage in the second half, scoring 16 of her game-high 19 points with five 3-pointers.
Big Walnut stayed in touch to the final horn as Mobley muscled in a basket with 1:56 remaining to cut Mount Notre Dame’s deficit to 48-43.
But with the Cougars milking the clock, possessions became invaluable and the Golden Eagles shot an air ball and committed four turnovers in the final stretch.
“The bottom line was they got it going and we didn’t get it going,” Largent said. “Whenever we made a run, they were able to answer with big shots. They made plays and we didn’t. We didn’t take care of the ball, and their defense was a big reason for some of our troubles.”
Big Walnut shot just 39.5 percent from the field, and hit just 2 of 16 from beyond the arc. Committing 20 turnovers also was atypical of a team riding a 19-game win streak.
Mount Notre Dame hit eight 3-pointers, giving them 198 on the season, and most of them were timely daggers.
Big Walnut teammates Lexie Federer and Remy Largent shared a forlorn moment as they watched the final seconds of their state tournament run count down.
Although all eight of the Cougars’ state titles came during a dominant 17-year stretch, they haven’t won a gold trophy since 2021 when all of the current players were in middle school.
“This means everything to us getting a chance to play for the state championship,” junior guard Reece Hackney said. “This team is deeper than just basketball. We love each other so much. The primary reason to keep winning is just to play with each other one more day … spend one more night together.”
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