SPRINGFIELD – A strong 24-13 second half provided the Versailles Lady Tigers an OHSAA DIII District Title with a 38-31 win over the Norwood Lady Indians.
“We are so proud of these girls,” said Versailles coach, Tracy White. “They got the job done and that’s all that matters.”
Norwood grabbed quarters 1 and 2 by identical 9-7 scores, doubling up on Versailles 14-7 at 6:31 in the second period before sending the teams to the break with the Cincinnati school holding an 18-14 halftime lead as the Lady Tigers struggled to get the ball to drop.
“It was a tale of two different teams in the halves,” said Versailles coach, Stacy White. “The first half we were kind of complacent and I didn’t feel like we were aggressive on defense. We talked about that at halftime and the girls made that adjustment in the second half.”
Coach White’s halftime message to her Lady Tigers: “The team that has more heart is going to win this game so we need to be the ones to relax, play our game, and have more heart for these two quarters.”
Versailles battled back in the third taking advantage of seven Katey Litten points including a 3-pointer, four Taylor Wagner points going 4-4 at the free-throw line, and an Allison Schwartz 2-point basket to trail 28-27 with a fourth quarter yet to play.
“We don’t always talk about Katey a lot because she’s just expected to be this great player,” Coach White stated. “She came in, started as a freshman, started as a sophomore so she kind of goes under the radar but she is the glue to our team, she’s the facilitator, she’s the one that runs our offense. She stepped up huge today and played composed and held us together.”
The fourth quarter belonged to the Lady Tigers with a Sarah Stammen driving layup to the basket giving Versailles a 32-31 lead at 4:36, a 10-foot Litten jumper at 2:44 to lead 34-31, a Dirksen layup at 1:45 and a 36-31 advantage, a Schwartz jumper in the paint at 1:02 giving Versailles a 38-31 that would hold up for the final score and land the Lady Tigers in the Sweet 16.
Seven Lady Tigers dented the scoreboard led by Litten’s 13 points. Norwood was limited to four Lady Indians getting in the scorebook led by Ali Winchester with a game-high 14 points.
Versailles advances to play Alter in a Regional semi-final game, Wednesday, March 6 at Springfield High School with an 8 p.m. start time.
“We’re up for another battle and I think these girls have their heads on straight,” said Coach White. “They are ready to go and they’re not settling, they want it all so we have to go one game at a time.”
BOXSCORE:
VERSAILLES – K. Litten 13, T. Wagner 7, A. Schwartz 7, S. Stammen 4, H. Stammen 3, J. Dirksen 2, G. Osborne 2 – TOTALS 13 6-12 2 38
NORWOOD – Ali Winchester 14, K. Jones 10, L. Moyers 5, Ava Winchester 2 – TOTALS 8 3-8 4 31
3-POINTERS
Versailles 2 (K. Litten 1, H. Stammen)
Norwood 4 (Ali Winchester 3, L. Moyers 1)
SCORE by QUARTERS
07-07-13-11 38 Versailles
09-09-10-03 31 Norwood
