Vacations are a great thing, most of the time. However, for the Hiland Lady Hawks, a little time off came too soon Saturday, March 1, when Hiland’s dreams of another run to the State tournament ended abruptly in the District finals with a 47-38 loss to Zanesville Rosecrans.

For only the second time in the past decade, Schlabach’s Lady Hawks basketball team will not be playing basketball in the Regional tournament, and it had as much to do with the way the Bishops defended as it did with anything else.

Rosecrans coach Gale Kirkbride contested every shot outside, and kept a player present in the paint to thwart the Lady Hawks’ aggressive style of going to the bucket.

That resulted in a number of blocked shots in the paint, and Hiland never really could get on track offensively.

“They are very good at attacking the bucket and jumping into people and getting fouls,” said Kirkbride. “We wanted to stop them from getting to the bucket, but at the same time we didn’t want to put them on the line a lot.”

That strategy paid off, both inside and outside. Hiland struggled to a 2-of-17 shooting performance from beyond the 3-point arc, and had six shots blocked inside.

A back-and-forth first quarter saw the Bishops eke out an 11-9 lead. Eight of the 11 Bishops points belonged to Maddie Chandler, who would be a thorn in the Lady Hawks’ side the entire game.

Chandler would score four more to begin the second quarter, while Regina Hoichstetler would respond with five, drawing Hiland to within 15-14. That was when senior Kloie Johnson stepped up and drilled three 3-pointers to give the Bishops a 24-18 lead. When Jessica Nash drove and hit a buzzer-beating layup, Rosecrans held a 26-18 halftime edge.

Nash scored the first four points of the second half, and suddenly Hiland was down 30-18.

Hochstetler, Jenica Schrock and Megan Beachy all then drove to the hoop to cut the lead in half at 30-24.

Hiland’s defense was taking a toll on Rosecrans, and continued to get stops.

Unfortunately, it was at that same time that Hiland had multiple chances to capitalize and shrink the lead, but instead produced four straight turnovers on offense.

“I thought we battled back,” said Schlabach. “We were down six, and turned the ball over four straight times. We had them in a situation similar to the last few years, where we were pretty fresh and they were in foul trouble. The lack of execution in those couple of minutes… we just couldn’t score.”

Chandler struck again with a three-point play, and Brittany Miller answered with a triple. Chandler fired back with a 3-pointer, and Hiland ended the quarter with Beachy splitting a pair before they got a stop and Emily Yoder raced the length of the floor to earn a foul as time ran out. She canned both free throws and Hiland was within striking distance at 36-30 heading to the fourth quarter.

However, unlike previous years, the Lady Hawks couldn’t turn on that magic potion they seemed to have over Rosecrans.

The six point deficiency for Hiland would be as close as they would get as the two teams traded scores the entire quarter.

Having gone through such agony the past three seasons, it was time for the Bishops to rejoice. For the Lady Hawks, it was a bitter end to a fantastic season.

“This really feels great,” said Kirkbride after the big win. “I am so happy for these girls. They have worked hard, and we’ve had been Heartbreak Hotel over the past three years with this group of seniors. 10 points total is what has kept us from moving on the past three years against Hiland. We’ve been on the wrong side all three of those times, so it feels very good to finally be on the right side.”

Hiland struggled all game to generate any kind of offensive flow, and Schlabach said the goal was to force the issue and take things right at the long, athletic Bishops.

“We had one goal and we were going to attack,” said Schlabach. “They are similar to Alter and West Holmes, and those teams have given us trouble. Their length was going to be a problem for our 3-point game, so we were going to attack and try to get them in foul trouble.”

Then there was Chandler, who stabbed Hiland in the heart numerous times.

“Maddie Chandler played an outstanding game, she was awesome tonight,” said Kirkbride.

Even having seen Rosecrans numerous times, the athleticism of Chandler was something that was hard for the Hiland coaching staff to pinpoint as to how to best defend.

“My biggest concern was Chandler coming in,” said Schlabach. “We felt like we had a lot of mismatch problems, but we felt like she was the kid who we had to try to figure out. It took us about two and one-half quarters to figure out who could guard her and how.”

Chandler led all scorers with 23, while Johnson added a dozen. Hochstetler ended her illustrious career with 16 points, with Schrock and Beachy adding seven and six, respectively.

Despite the size deficiency, Hiland snagged a whopping 18 offensive rebounds, leading a 34-22 rebounding advantage.

They simply couldn’t turn enough of those offense boards into points, which ultimately led to an early vacation, one which Schlabach and his team would prefer not to take.