COVINGTON – The Versailles Lady Tigers capitalized on a solid 36-10 second half to propel them to a 62-29 second-round OHSAA DIII tournament win over the Brookville Lady Blue Devils.
“All three seniors held us together tonight,” Versailles coach, Stacy White said of Jenna Dirksen, Allison Schwartz, and Heidi Stammen.
Brookville brought its ‘A’ game to open first-quarter play hanging with the Lady Tigers to trail by two, 14-12 with one period in the book.
“It was a battle,” said White. “They worked hard, they came to play, it was back and forth until we could get in a groove and get some things going offensively and defensively.”
The Lady Blue Devils knotted the score at 14-14 at 7:24 to open second-quarter action and trailed by one point, 20-19 before Versailles closed out second-period play with a 6-0 run to lead 26-19 at the break. Versailles sophomore Brooke Bergman came off the Lady Tigers bench to knock down two baseline 3-pointers in the second.
“Brooke has played solid each time that we have needed her this year,” Coach White stated. “She waits for her number to be called and I know a lot of times her number doesn’t get called as much or as early as she would like but she stayed the course and she works hard every single day. She comes ready to go and she has a nice shot.”
“We’ve talked about her shooting with confidence and not second guessing it – catching ready to shoot,” continued White. She came in, she was a spark for us because we were in a little bit of foul trouble, she came in, didn’t think twice about it, and knocked some threes down which was huge. Tonight it was good to see her do some things defensively as well as knocking down shots on offense.”
Versailles opened third quarter scoring with a 12-2 scoring run to lead 38-21 with 3:22 showing only to have Brookville score six unanswered points to cut the Lady Tigers’ lead to 38-27. Versailles answered with a 5-0 run to close out third quarter action and take a 43-27 lead to the final period of play.
The Lady Tigers started the fourth with a 13-0 run to lead 56-27 while the defense was limiting the Lady Blue Devils to a single fourth-quarter basket. Coach White cleared her bench at 3:22 on the way to a 33-point tournament win.
With the win, No. 5 seed Versailles earns a rematch with the No. 2 seed Waynesville Lady Spartans. The undefeated 24-0 Lady Spartans defeated Versailles 47-44 on their home court on December 30, 2023, and earned the Tuesday night rematch with a 95-10 tournament win over Dunbar.
“It is one of those games I feel like got away from us that we should have won,” Coach White said. “It’s going to be a fun one, it’s going to be a battle. We have a few days and we have to get ready and give it all we got. We have to limit our turnovers to a good team like Waynesville, execute on offense, and shut them down on defense to win a game.”
Jenna Dirksen led Versailles and all scorers with a game-high 17 points. Nine Lady Tigers put points on the board in the Thursday night tournament win.
The Versailles Lady Tigers and Waynesville play at Covington, Tuesday, February 27th.
BOXSCORE:
VERSAILLES 62, BROOKVILLE 29
VERSAILLES – J. Dirksen 17, T. Wagner 13, B. Bergman 9, A. Schwartz 8, K. Litten 5, E. Stammen 4, S. Stammen 2, G. Osborne 2, J. Heitkamp 2 – TOTALS 20 7-10 5 62
BROOKVILLE –A. Haupt 16, A. Lackey 5, E. Dafler 4, S. Carr 2, M. Luebke 2 – TOTALS 4 9-11 4 29
3-POINTERS
Versailles 5 (B. Bergman 3, J. Dirksen 1, K. Litten 1)
Brookville 4 (A. Haupt 3, A. Lackey 1)
SCORE by QUARTERS
14-12-17-19 62 Versailles
12-07-08-02 29 Brookville
