| Lake’s Sara Dabney takes the first snip at the basketball net as teammates celebrate in the background. (Photo: Enoch Wu/Sentinel-Tribune) |
MILLBURY – Lake’s girls basketball team has finally gotten over its district final roadblock.
Now that the Flyers have advanced to the regionals for the first time since 1986, head coach Denny Meyer
and his team look to keep the momentum going.
Lake and Fort Recovery meet in a Division III regional semifinal at Ohio Northern University tonight at
7.
Losing in the district finals to eventual state qualifier Liberty-Benton following 20-0 regular seasons
each of the last two years, the Flyers punched their ticket to regionals with a convincing 46-31 win
over Suburban Lake League rival Genoa on Saturday.
"This is the third year we were in the district finals, so to finally be able to make it feels good,
and it’s even better to know we beat our league rival to make it there," Meyer said. "It means
a lot for our program … It’s big because you kind of get worried and wonder if it is getting in our
head that we can’t get past district finals. So it’s really good for our program that we proved we can
move on."
The Flyers, 22-1 and ranked second in the final state poll, will face a challenge in the Indians, who
defeated Evergreen, 48-38 in the district finals.
Fort Recovery (21-2) was ranked 12th in the final state poll and is on a 11-game winning streak. The
Indians’ last loss came to Minster on Jan. 20. Minster is playing in the Division IV regionals.
The Indians’ two losses have been to conference champions, St. Mary’s of the Western Buckeye League, and
Minster of the Midwest Athletic Conference.
"Really, they’re kind of a team like us," Meyer said. "They play great defense. They’ll
pressure you full-court like we do, man-to-man. They’ll trap. They’re fundamentally sound and from
watching the tapes I’m seeing that they love to shoot the three."
Two sisters, seniors Holly Brunswick (5-foot-8) and Kendra Brunswick (5-7), are the team’s top two
scorers with both averaging around 12 points per game. The two are part of triplets, and their brother
plays basketball.
The Indians use up to nine players on a regular basis, compared to Lake’s short bench that uses a
rotation of mainly six players.
Also expected to start for Fort Recovery is Nicole Dilworth, senior guard, 5-7; Olivia Thien, senior
forward, 5-9; and Abby Huelskamp, senior forward, 5-8.
"It’s going to have to be our defense again," Meyer said of the key to the game. "From
what I’ve seen on the tapes, I haven’t seen a whole lot of teams pressuring them man-to-man.
"A big key for us is to be able to handle their pressure. We haven’t had a whole lot of teams press
us, and when they do we usually handle it pretty well," he added. "We really have to not have
too many turnovers and take care of the ball. I look for it to be a pretty low-scoring game."
The Flyers haven’t lost since falling to Division II state-ranked Clyde on Feb. 14. Clyde is also a
regional semifinalist.
"One thing that’s helped us, even though we haven’t been to the regionals, is we played in a whole a
lot of big games in front of big crowds. So hopefully that part won’t bother us," Meyer said.
"Ever since we played Clyde we just keep telling them we don’t think we will face a team in
Division III that’s as good as Clyde. After the first quarter, we played right with them.
"So that can give us confidence knowing that we did play with them and how good they are."
The winner of the Lake-Fort Recovery game will meet the winner of Seneca East and Columbus Africentric in
the regional finals at Lexington High School on Saturday at 1:30 p.m.
