“One of our goals was to get back to a district final and we accomplished that,” said Firebirds coach Jeremey Finn. “The girls are excited. We know we’ve got a lot of work to do. We hope to have a couple good practices before we go (on Saturday).”
Freshman Janiyah Hargrave had a game-high 17 points and junior Kaylah Thornton added 11 as Fairmont (21-2) won its ninth straight game.
“I thought we had a great game plan,” Finn said. “We did a really good job defensively. I thought we got comfortable early and the kids did what we were supposed to. We had a really good game plan and we stuck with what we were trying to do. It was a really good job by the girls.”
Beavercreek finished its season 9-13.
The Firebirds advanced to face Lakota West (14-9) — which beat Lebanon 40-35 at Fairfield High School — in a district final game on Saturday at a date and time to be determined. The game will be moved to a different location as it was originally scheduled to be played at Lakota West.
“We know we’ll have our hands full and we just wanted a shot,” Finn said. “There’s 32 teams left so we’ll put our best foot forward.”
Fairmont won its 21st game of the season, the first time they’ve accomplished that since the 2019-2020 season. They went 12-0 to start the season before falling to Portsmouth and Toledo Notre Dame in mid-January — and they haven’t been beaten since.
“The kids really like being around one another,” Finn said. “We practice really well together and we put in a lot of work. We talked about going day-by-day. I’m really proud of all of them.”
Springfield 47, Centerville 46, OT: The Elks trailed 39-37 with eight seconds remaining when junior Halley Boeke intercepted a pass, drove to the basket and finished with her left hand to send the game to overtime.
“I thought we played hard and competed,” said Elks coach Adam Priefer. “At the end (of regulation), we executed what we had talked about out of the timeout. They didn’t have any timeouts so we wanted them to make a tough decision and our girls did a great job of getting it and taking it right to the basket. It was awesome. In the overtime, we did a great job executing, we missed some free throws, made a mental mistake and ended up making one too many mistakes in the overtime.”
Centerville took a 44-43 lead on another basket by Boeke with 1:28 remaining in overtime. A basket by Springfield junior Jada Crockran gave Springfield a 45-44 lead with about 20 seconds remaining.
With 14.7 seconds remaining, Elks senior Caroline McDowell was fouled and made both free throws to give Centerville a one-point lead.
On the next possession, Springfield sophomore Ava Valle was fouled and hit both free throws to make it 47-46. The Elks were called for carrying in the backcourt before they could get a shot off to win the game.
Wildcats senior Jaela Johnson had a game-high 19 points and junior Milly Portis added 15 as Springfield (12-11) advanced to the district finals for the first time in school history. They’ll play Mason (22-1) in a D-I district final game at 2 p.m. Saturday at Fairborn.
McDowell had 15 points and Boeke and junior Bella Keaton each had 12 for Centerville, which finished its season 12-11.
“I’m always proud of how our kids compete,” Priefer said. “They play hard every minute. They get down on themselves sometimes, and today you saw them get down and they battled and rallied back, so I was really proud of that. We’re very fortunate to have kids who will battle like that.”
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