Centerville missed an opportunity to tie or take the lead following a Warriors’ turnover, and that gave Gray the only opening she needed. The highly regarded Winton Woods senior sank her seventh 3-pointer of the game for a 47-42 lead and started the Warriors on a game-ending 17-8 run for a 60-51 win.
“We had too many empty possessions,” Centerville coach Adam Priefer said. “We fell behind by too much.”
The Elks shot just 29 percent from the field (17-of-57), including 29.6 percent (8-of-27) on 3-pointers.
Winton Woods (25-1) advanced to a regional semifinal berth against Mason, ranked sixth in the Associated Press Division I state poll. The Warriors will take a 23-game winning streak into that game, which is scheduled to tipoff at 6 p.m. on Tuesday at Princeton.
The Comets advanced with a 57-48 win over Springboro.
Freshman guard Caroline McDowell sank four 3-pointers on 14 tries and led the Elks with 14 points. Senior guard Megan Taylor finished with 11 points for Centerville (20-6).
Centerville never led after Gray converted a traditional three-point play for a 3-2 Winton Woods lead less than two minutes into the game. She followed up by connecting on four 3-pointers and scoring 15 points in the first quarter.
Gray, who transferred from Lakota West after her father, Carlton Gray, took the Winton Woods girls’ coaching job, added nine points in the second quarter to help the Warriors open up a 34-26 halftime lead.
Gray went scoreless in the third quarter, but senior Daysia Thompson picked up the slack with eight of her 14 points as Winton Woods grabbed a 44-30 lead with 2:33 left in the quarter.
Priefer agreed that Winton Woods is more than just Gray.
“They have some nice players,” Priefer said of Winton Woods. “They hit some big shots.”
Centerville had won six straight games and 12 of its last 13 to reach its second consecutive district final and third in the last four years. The Elks won a district title to advance to the regional semifinals last season.
“I told them I was very proud of what they accomplished,” Priefer said. “We faced a lot of adversity with injuries. We played a lot of players on the varsity for the first time.”
Mason 57, Springboro 48: 6-foot-6 Kyla Oldacre dominated for the Comets, scoring 27 points – including 11-of-16 free throws – and hauling in 15 rebounds as they pulled away in the second half to set up a regional semifinal matchup with Winton Woods on Tuesday at 6 p.m. at Princeton.
“She’s been averaging 14-1/2 to 15 points a game, and we thought if we could keep her in that area, we’d have a chance,” Panthers coach Tom Benjamin. “Our first goal was to contain her, because you’re not going to stop her. She made her foul shots, which she doesn’t always do. We fouled her too much, and she split us too much.”
Freshman guard-forward Bryn Martin scored 19 points and classmate Ava Wade added 11 for Springboro (20-6), which won four straight games and 10 of its last 11 to reach a third consecutive district final.
Mason led by 11 in the second quarter before Springboro came back to take a one-point halftime lead. The Comets regained the lead with a 6-0 run to open the third quarter and never trailed.
“We didn’t start out well,” Benjamin said. “I thought we showed some guts coming back to take the lead, but then we didn’t start the third quarter well. That can’t happen.”
Mount Notre Dame 67, Bellbrook 27: The Golden Eagles, in their first district championship game as a Division I program, became the third area team to get knocked out of the tournament on Saturday at Princeton.
Bellbrook (23-3), ranked eighth in the final AP Division I statewide poll, was eliminated by the top-ranked Cougars (25-0), who’ve won the last two state championships.
Dre Pryce, the only senior on Bellbrook’s program roster, scored a team-high 10 points.
The Golden Eagles took a nine-game winning streak into the game in their third season as a Division I program.
“I’m super proud of the kids,” coach Jason Tincher. “That was a tall task. We have tremendous respect for (Mount Notre Dame). You watch them on film, and you think, ‘We don’t have to play perfect,’ but we still had to be on in all aspects of the game. We had to hit shots. We had to rebound. We had to pay attention to their star players. I’m not upset with the way the way the girls played.
“I told the girls that, now that we’re a Division I team, what they did for our program was tremendous. We had to work our way up through Division II, and we took our lumps there, but now we’re already breaking glass here. They got us here. Now we know what we have to do to move forward.”
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