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In the Div. IV district semifinal between Hiland and Fort Frye on Wednesday night Feb. 24 the Cadets had to feel good about where they were at halftime.
Fort Frye missed six free throws in the first half, bricked three bunnies at point-blank range and watched Hiland’s Morgan McMillen and Kennedy Schlabach bank in 3-pointers.
Despite all the bad bounces, the Cadets still only trailed Hiland 23-14 at the break.
On top of the tough breaks the Cadets endured in the first half, they were missing their leading scorer Makayla Liedtke who went down with an ACL injury during game 16 of her season.
The Lady Hawks played their own part in allowing the Cadets to hang around in the first half with some horrendous shooting.
That changed in the second half thanks to the dead-eye shooting of one Kennedy Schlabach.
The Hiland sophomore, Kennedy Schlabach, told her team to go ahead and jump on her back and come along for the ride as she buried four 3-pointers on four straight Hiland trips down the floor to open Hiland’s nine-point halftime lead to 36-18.
After Kennedy Schlabach’s shooting assault, the Lady Hawks sailed to a 23-point win over Fort Frye by the score of 48-25.
Hiland, the #1 seed, will move on to the Div. IV district final on Saturday Feb. 27 to face the #2 seed River. That game will be played at Cambridge High School and tip-off is at 4 p.m. River beat Malvern on Wednesday night 53-41. River senior and Ohio St. commit Jensen Caretti recorded a triple-double for the Pilots scoring 27 points, grabbing 13 rebounds and swatting 11 shots.
Kennedy Schlabach had a team and game-high of 22 points and tripled a total of six times. Her sophomore running mate Morgan McMillen tossed in 12 points to help the cause.
“We were just looking for a kid to get it rolling to loosen things up for us,” said Hiland head coach Dave Schlabach about Kennedy Schlabach’s hot shooting in the third. “I thought we got it going in the second half overall. The kids did a good job of finding Kennedy (Schlabach) when she got rolling. You have to execute those plays when a kid gets hot. Our program has always done that for whoever gets the hot hand.”
Senior Megan Hesson had eight points, same as fellow senior Alexis Enochs to lead Fort Frye, who end the season with a 18-7 record.
Hiland led after one quarter 11-6 on the heels of Angela Troyer’s four first-quarter points and Brittany Miller’s steal late in the period that she took all the way to the rack for two.
Then the Lady Hawks went to the bank.
Schlabach and McMillen (video) both banked in 3-pointers in the second quarter to give the Lady Hawks a 21-12 lead with two minutes left in the stanza.
Fort Frye was doing a great job a breaking the Hiland full-court pressure, but missed shots at close range late in the second. Hiland’s fortunate triples left the Cadets playing catch-up.
Cadets’ head coach Dan Liedtke thought that his team played a good first half, just couldn’t drop home the buckets they needed.
“When that happens time and time again, that really deflates a team,” said Liedtke about the crucial misses. “You work so hard, get the ball back, miss a shot and then they come down and bank home a three. We weren’t doing anything wrong, we just had to put the ball in the basket.”
The Lady Hawks knew that they caught a couple breaks in the first half and may have been a bit lucky to be carrying a lead into the second half.
“We couldn’t shoot it any worse,” said Dave Schlabach about the rough first half for his Lady Hawks. “We’ve shot it so well lately, that it frustrated us that we didn’t shoot well in the first half. A lot of that was their defense too.”
The stiff Fort Frye defense wasn’t a surprise to many as the Cadets only allowed a combined 35 points in their first two tournament games.
“We were feeling good at halftime,” said Liedtke. “The only thing that beat us in this game was our shooting. We just couldn’t score. We had a lot of good looks that we didn’t put in and against a team like that you have to do that.”
Kennedy Schlabach didn’t have any trouble in the third making it rain. Her four triples in the period put the game out of reach for the Cadets who were already struggling mightily to score a basket.
Hiland extended its halftime lead from nine to 15 in the third quarter, outscoring the Cadets 14-8 in the period.
Then when it seemed like the Lady Hawks needed one more play to put the nail in the coffin they got it from Jessica Troyer. The junior ripped Fort Frye’s point guard Katie Hart at the timeline, dove on the floor, tearing the ball from Hart, and then from seat of her shorts flipped a pass to Kennedy Schlabach who scored on a drive to the hoop. The crazy-good defensive gem absolutely bursts Fort Frye’s bubble.
“My nickname for her right now is Big Motor,” said Dave Schlabach about Jessica Troyer. “I need her to come off the bench with a huge motor and go give us plays. She’s sacrificed a lot this season and I give her a lot of credit, she came off the bench and gave us big minutes.”
The steal was one of five on the night for Jessica Troyer, who also had five assists and two rebounds. She didn’t score, but made a big dent in other areas.
Troyer’s inspiring play gave the Hawks a 17 points lead. Then McMillen drilled her second 3-pointer, got a feed on the block (video) and laid it in and stroked a couple freebies in the fourth quarter to push the lead over 20 points, 46-25.
After scoring over 90 points the first two games of the tournament, the Pilots landed the Lady Hawks back down to earth.
“Fort Frye is a good team,” said Schlabach. “We have a tremendous amount of respect for them and their coaches. They’re as discipline and fundamental as a team you are going to find.”
Hiland is now 22-3 heading into the district final match-up with River. The Lady Hawks have won the district title 11 times since 2000.
