Lake girls beat Genoa advance to regional (03-07-11)

WHITEHOUSE — Though it has only one loss and is the second-ranked team in Division III, people have
doubted Lake’s girls basketball team all season.
But now, the doubters have been silenced.
Saturday night before an estimated crowd of 1,800 at Anthony Wayne High School the Flyers defeated
eighth-ranked Genoa 46-31, giving Lake its first district championship since 1986.
“People have doubted us the whole year because of the numbers that we have,” Flyer head coach Denny Meyer
said. “They don’t know the heart that these girls have. All year everybody said ‘you can’t win the
league, Genoa is way better than you. You won’t even get out of sectionals let alone districts,’ and now
we’re going farther than we’ve ever been.”
Lake had never made it to regionals in its last two seasons under coach Meyer as it lost to
Liberty-Benton in the district finals each of the previous two seasons.
But now the Flyers (22-1) move on to the regional semifinals to face Fort Recovery, who was among the
teams to receive at least 12 votes in the final state poll, on Tuesday at Ohio Northern University with
tipoff scheduled for 7 p.m.
“Definitely it’s even more exciting to beat your rival to make it to regional’s,” Lake senior Kaysie
Brittenham said.
Saturday’s win is the Flyers’ third over Genoa (21-3) this season.
After being out-scored 31-13 in the first half, the Comets stepped up their defense in the third quarter
and out-played Lake, eventually cutting the deficit to nine points.
Julie Swartzmiller led Genoa through the third scoring seven of her team-high 13 points.
Genoa hadn’t allowed the Flyers to score from the field in the third until Brittenham hit a runner just
in front of the hoop with 24 seconds on the clock.
Then with about five seconds remaining, Lake’s Hannah Cox received an inbound pass and took the ball up
court and fired from about 15 feet behind the arc, draining the buzzer-beating triple.
Cox had nine points, her only two field goals being 3-point baskets.
Both Meyer and Genoa head coach Mike Destazio saw the improbable trey as a big reason that the Flyers
were able to hold on for the win.
“That was a backbreaker,” Destazio said. “You’re going to be down 11 instead of 14 and that does hurt.
It’s part of the game you can’t control. I can’t expect my kid to go out and guard her 45 feet from the
basket. The last thing you want to do is foul a kid throwing that up.”
“I thought that was a dagger,” Meyer said. “(Genoa) had some momentum going. After hitting that, we
thought we played as bad as you can play in the third quarter and we had only lost four points on them
during that quarter. But that’s because of that big shot that (Cox) hit.”
With Brittenham playing possibly her best basketball of the season, if not her career, Genoa made it a
point to keep her guarded tight.
The Comets succeeded as Brittenham missed her first five shot attempts, but the Flyers got solid play out
of post Carly Huston.
“I knew I had to work to get open and work to really score tonight so that’s what I did,” Huston said.

Huston made up for Brittenham’s lack of production by scoring six of her 15 points in the first quarter.

But halfway through the second quarter, in the midst of a 19-4 scoring run, Brittenham’s offense suddenly
came alive as she scored 10 of Lake’s final 12 points in the quarter, while shooting 4-of-4 from the
floor.
“It was probably a little bit of those first few minutes kind of nerves thing,” Brittenham said of her
slow start. “My thing is if you miss 10, then you’re going to make the next 10, so I stay with it.”
“Our defense got steals and we always say against these triangle-and-twos, ‘let your defense get steals
and go shoot layups before they can even get in their triangle-and-two,’” Meyer said. “To me that’s what
that second quarter was about.”
Brittenham looked like the player that everybody knows throughout the remainder of the game as she
finished with 15 points and nine rebounds, while, as usual, playing phenomenal defense.
In addition to her scoring production, Huston also played solid defense in the paint as she held the
Comets’ two 5-foot 10 posts (Jessica Feller and Bailee Adams) to two points each.
And the rest of the Flyers played solid defense as well, forcing 24 turnovers, including 17 in the first
half, and holding Genoa to 11-of-36 (31 percent) from the field.
“We really got them to put their heads down and dribble the ball and when they turned we were there
trapping them and they didn’t handle the press very well,” Brittenham said.
For now Lake enjoy and celebrate their district title, but it will have to quickly focus on its next
opponent as the competition only gets tougher from this point.
In order to keep the season alive, the Flyers need to do just one thing:
“Play like we did in the second quarter,” Meyer said laughing. “We just have to come out ready to play
and come out with intensity,” he added. “Like I said, people don’t know the heart inside these girls.”

LAKE 46, GENOA 31
GENOA
Mock, 0-0—0; Albright, 0-0—0; Swartzmiller, 3-2-1—13; Peer, 0-0—0; Schimming, 1-1-0—5; Meis, 2-2—6;
Johnson, 0-3—3; Beck, 0-0—0; Bergman, 0-0—0; Giles, 0-0—0; Feller, 1-0—2; Adams, 1-0—2. TOTALS:
8-3-6—31.
LAKE
Brittenham, 6-3—15; Woodruff, 0-1-0—3; Dabney, 0-0—0; Johnson, 1-0—2; Cox, 0-2-3—9; Pennington, 0-0—0;
Huston, 6-3—15; Shaffer, 1-0—2; Lee, 0-0—0. TOTALS: 14-3-9—46.
GENOA 6 7 12 6 —31
LAKE 11 20 8 7 —46