Waterford’s Avery Wagner gets a hand on Victoria Mescher’s shot during Saturday’s Division VII title game. Mescher scored 19 points. (Press Pros Feature Photos by Logan Gapen)
Fort Loramie’s repeat title came up two points short in the championship game rematch against Waterford. The Waterford Wildcats sunk 7 of 16 3-point attempts on the way to their third state title.
Dayton, OH – Trailing 48-46 with 2.9 seconds left, Fort Loramie had the basketball and a dream. If the Lady Redskins could inbound from under their own basket and score, the dream of repeat championship would live on. Or with a 3-pointer, come true.
But their own best friend stabbed them in the back.
The Minster Bank is proud to sponsor the best in area sports coverage on Press Pros Magazine.
All season the Redskins made their living off turnovers. The steal was their most trusted ally and companion. But in their hour of need, it stuck a knife in their back and shattered their dream.
Alan Brads wrotes OHSSA sports and sports at large for Press Pros Magazine.com.
On the Ides of March, no less.
Brute, anyone?
Waterford’s Kendall Sury swatted away Ariel Heitkamp’s inbound pass intended for Avery Brandewie. The ball pinballed back to Heitkamp, who caught it a microsecond before establishing herself back in bounds.
The Waterford Wildcats got their revenge and hoisted the trophy Fort Loramie denied them a year ago.
It took three tries for Waterford (27-1) to get past Loramie (25-4), falling in the 2015 and 2024 state title games, but third time’s a charm for Jerry Close and the Wildcats. This is their third state title in program history. It’s also, for better or for worse, the first Division VII title in state history.
“We were hoping to get the last four-division title, and the first Division-VII title,” Waterford coach Jerry Close said. “But they got the last four-division, and so we’ll take this, this is very special. That’s something these girls will always have, and on one can ever take away from them.”
A two-point loss fits the pattern of the game. Loramie hung around, trailing by three to nine points for nearly the whole game, never quite getting over the hump, but refusing to go to rest.
Bunny’s Pharmacy, in downtown Sidney, supports the Shelby County League on Press Pros.
Loramie Senior Victoria Mescher willed her team through the fourth quarter, grabbing loose balls, forcing jump balls and getting tough in the paint to score or get to the line. Mescher had to be equal parts gritty and clever to score in the lane with 6-4 Avery Wagner looming, waiting to swallow up a careless shot.
“We knew obviously she was a lot taller than me, so I couldn’t just go straight at her,” Mescher said. “I had to use my pivots and pump fakes to get her off her feet, and I feel like I did that successfully sometimes. I knew she’s a shot blocker, so we had to find other ways to work around it.”
Avery Brandewie faced double teams throughout the game and got rare opportunities to score.
Mescher’s up-and-under move duped Wagner for a couple of baskets on the way to 19 points, including seven in the fourth quarter.
Fort Loramie held Waterford to two points and zero field goals in the final 4:35 of the game. But Waterford’s defense is the only one as tough as Loramie’s you’ll find in D-VII basketball. Mescher and Mylee Shatto made some free throws, but Loramie found just one field goal of its own in the final five minutes.
A few times in the stretch, the flame of hope blazed, but only to be doused again.
With 1:50 to play, Avery Brandewie got a steal and tried to move quickly the other way, to cut into the 46-43 deficit, but she was interrupted at half court by a suspect charge call. On the ensuing possession, Mescher committed her fourth foul, taming her on defense for the final two minutes.
Again the fire burned with 28 seconds left when a double team at half court resulted in Brandewie coming away with a steal. There was no doubt who would take the final shot.
Logan Services, in Dayton, Cincinnati, an Columbus, is a proud sponsor of area sports on Press Pros.
Carla Siegel dialed Mescher’s number one more time, but the congestion in the lane was too dense. Wagner got a hand on the 8-foot jumper, and it sailed out of bounds with 2.9 seconds left.
On the final inbound play, had the ball returned to Heitkamp just a fraction of a second later, her pass to an open Mescher in the lane wouldn’t have been nullified, and she would’ve had a chance to tie it.
But Wagner’s handprint being plastered onto the final seconds of the game isn’t a coincidence. Wagner scored 16 points on 6/9 shooting, including 2/3 from behind the arc. Brandewie and Mescher are both exceptional defenders who spent time tracking Wagner. Moments into the second quarter, she pulled up from three on a fast break and stroked it, and it became crystal clear that she was a problem.
Victoria Mescher finds her way around Avery Wagner for two of her game-high 19 points.
Her value on defense is harder to quantify, but Brandewie scoring just eight points should clue you in on the hazardous conditions in the low post.
Wagner averages over nine rebounds per game, but on an otherwise quiet night, Brandewie out-hustled the field for 12 rebounds, while Wagner grabbed eight.
“My offensive side really wasn’t there tonight,” Brandewie said. “But basketball’s a two-way game … So I just worked hard and left it all out on the court.”
Siegel chimed in: “12 rebounds, four steals. That’s Avery [Brandewie]. Everyone always talks about what she does on the offensive end, and she’s a great offensive player. But defensively, she does a lot for us.”
Standout Wildcat guard Kendall Sury added 15 points on 5/11 shooting while handling the ball with care against Lormaie’s incessant harassment.
Waterford hit 7/16 threes, benefitting from three that banked off the window.
“I think them hitting all those threes was probably the game,” Siegel said. “If you would’ve told me before the game that we were going to score 46 points today, I would’ve said that we were gonna win the game. It was two defensive teams going at it. Last year the score was 42-29. So if you said we were gonna score 46, I woulda said, ‘Wow, that’s a pretty good number. I think we’re gonna win the game.’”
But Wagner had other ideas. She imposed her will early, boosting Waterford to a 6-2 lead, but the Redskins replied, taking a 7-6 lead. Who would’ve guessed it’d be their first, last and only lead?
Waterford senior Avery Smithberger banked a corner three at the buzzer to take a 12-7 lead. She made two 3-pointers and scored eight on the night.
Two more threes went down in the early second to extend Waterford’s run to 12-0, but Loramie buckled down on defense before it got out of hand, and forced a four-minute scoring drought.
Mylee Shatto sunk a three, then got a steal, which matured into a Mescher 2-pointer to slice the lead to 23-20 by halftime.
Fort Loramie’s Izzy Meyer has a lane to the basket against Waterford’s Elsie Malec.
Like the first two, the Wildcats opened the third quarter red hot, inflating the lead back to nine. Wagner scored nine in the third, but Heitkamp and Shatto hit threes, and Mescher got busy in the lane to keep the ‘Skins afloat.
Sury’s six points early in the fourth to maintain a 46-40 lead weren’t presumed to be enough with four minutes still to play. But the defense held true, and Bryn Pottmeyer’s two free throws, her only points of the game, were the only points Waterford needed to be 48-46 state champions.
If these two perennial powerhouses played 10 times, it’s impossible to say who would win how many.. Waterford may have caught a break banking a trio of threes. But on the other side of the same coin, Shatto, not normally a 3-point contributor, hit 3/3 from deep for the Redksins.
Eight of them would probably be thrilling and competitive like this one. They’re evenly matched to where either team could be either team on any day. That can’t be said for any other team in Division VII. There’s a reason both these teams got back to the finals, and there’s a reason they were there a year ago while competing against larger schools.
But here’s all we can know about 10 imaginary games between Fort Loramie and Waterford: We’d all pay watch all 10 of them, and we’d get our money’s worth.
Wilson Health proudly sponsors your favorite area sports on Press Pros Magazine.com.