Woulda, shoulda coulda's aside, the 2012 Hiland Lady Hawks had an awful lot to be proud of during their Season of Redemption.

They simply ran out of gas in the end.

The Lady Hawks saw a perfect storm drown out their chances of winning another Div. IV State title on Saturday, March 17.

Poor shooting, poor shot selection, the inability to make lay-ups and a huge number of unforced errors led to a 53-38 loss to the Arlington Lady Red Devils, and a nightmare of a first half which saw everything that could go wrong was the main culprit.

"We've shown over the course of the year that we are more than capable of playing like that," said Hiland coach Dave Schlabach with a weary smile following the game. "But I feel like this team got really, really close to reaching our full potential. Maybe we did, I don't know. We just didn't play the way have played the past seven games."

The effort, desire and drive the Lady Hawks showed down the stretch belied the 19-9 record with which they ended the year. It also proved a whole lot of doubters who never felt that this group would reach such lofty heights incorrect in their assumption.

"We are disappointed," said senior McKenzie Miller. "We've played at such a high level for the past eight games. I think our nerves got to us in the beginning, and we didn't start out like we should have, and all of those errors in the beginning hurt."

Every little thing that went wrong seemed to ignite the Lady Red Devils, and everything that could go wrong seemed to deflate Hiland. The Lady Hawks were stuck on two for the entire first quarter, until Miller made a lay-up to close the quarter down 13-4.

Things only got worse for the Lady Hawks in the second quarter. The Arlington lead grew to 23-10, but Hiland had a shot at closing the half with a score, going for the final shot.

However, that plan got scrapped when Jasmine Goings had the ball stripped away by Amelia Recker. The Lady Red Devils took off down the floor, took a last second shot and missed, only to see Dani Heaster grab the miss and stick it back in, at the same time getting fouled by Emily Yoder. Heaster completed the three-point play to send Arlington into the half with a 26-10 advantage, and things looked bleak for the Lady Hawks.

"We're a team that plays in momentum and streaks, and we just didn't get anything going that first half," said Schlabach.

However, Schlabach knows a little bit about the pressure of the State tournament, and even about teams making wild comebacks. In 2010, his team blew a 17-point lead to Africentric in the finals and watched helplessly as the Lady Nubians roared back to victory.

"We did talk about that at the half, but we had dug ourselves such a huge hole we couldn't get back in it," said Schlabach.

Any thunderous halftime speeches by Schlabach did not turn the game around, Arlington eventually building a 30-10 lead.

It was then that Hiland began playing with a little more sense of urgency, and reeled off seven straight on two Miller free throws, a three-point play by Regan Miller and a Hall jumper. But that was as close as Hiland could get, leaving them hoisting the runner-up trophy following the game.

The biggest disappointment for Schlabach was not the poor shooting, but rather the way his team played defense. Hard-nosed, stubborn and relentless on defense normally, the Lady Hawks did not exhibit the same flair for defense they have displayed all season.

Instead it was the Lady Red Devils, which took it to Hiland on defense, forcing a number of unforced errors, never giving Hiland a good look at the bucket, inside or out. Hiland ended up shooting a tepid 3-of-22 from beyond the arc, this after setting a Div. IV record for 3-pointers by a team two days earlier.

"They definitely put very intense pressure on us," said Meagan Hall. "It wasn't anything that we haven't seen before, but we just didn't handle it with as much poise as we have in the past."

For Arlington coach Seth Newlove, whose team finished off its championship year 27-1, the game all hinged on how well his Red Devils played defense, and he was thrilled with the results put forth by his troops.

"It sounds cliché, but defensive pressure was it," said Newlove. "I wasn't sure we could contain their penetration. That was the key. And on the other side, it was handling their pressure. They get after it and they scrap, and we did a great job of keeping our poise when they came and trapped us."

While the loss stings, Schlabach said that once the kids are able to put the season in perspective, they will look back and realize how far they came and how much they achieved.

"It would have been nice to get another weekend of play at the high level we had been playing at," said Schlabach. "But these kids should be proud of what they accomplished. They got to places most people didn't think they could get. We're extremely proud of them. They are a group that doesn't yet realize what they were able to accomplish. They should be extremely happy with how things went this year."