Knights’ post-season run ends in regional semifinals

Boyer Valley used a 14-2 second quarter run to pull away from Fremont-Mills for a 62-42 win in the Class 1A, Region 7 semifinals in Treynor Friday.

The loss ends the Knights’ season with a record of 15-10. The state rated Bulldogs (20-2) advanced to Monday’s regional final against Exira/Elk-Horn-Kimballton. Results of that game were not available at press time.

In the semifinals, the Knights used some hot shooting late in the first quarter to pull within 19-14 but the Bulldogs began to pull away in the second frame. Boyer Valley out-scored the Knights 14-2 in the quarter, led by 17 at the half and pushed that lead to as many as 24 in the second half.

Clara Schaaf led the Knights with 11 points. Courtney Goodman added 10.

Boyer Valley was paced by Erin Weber’s 20 points.

Fremont-Mills 41,
East Mills 40

Fremont-Mills led for exactly 2.8 seconds.

It just so happened those few clicks on the clock turned out to be the most important of the game.

After trailing for 31 minutes and 57.2 seconds, Lexi Howard’s layup with 2.8 left on the clock completed a 16-point comeback and lifted the Knights to a thrilling, 41-40 victory over East Mills in the Class 1A, Region 7 quarterfinals in Malvern last Tuesday.

“That’s just how we drew it up,” said Fremont-Mills coach Brett Weldon after the game when told his team led for less than three seconds in the win. “No, coach Hollman had them well prepared. They came out and shot the ball really well. I just kept telling the girls, we gotta stick with it. They’re going to cool off eventually. But they had a great game plan and we were fortunate to win.”

The final play came about after the Knights missed three point blank shots, the final of which went out of bounds off the Wolverines. With the ball under his own basket, Weldon called a timeout to set up a final play and looked directly at his senior leader, Clara Schaaf, for input.

“I asked Clara what our best inbounds play was and she was most comfortable with,” Weldon said. “She made the call and she threw a great pass. They had it covered pretty well but Lexi finished and there wasn’t enough time for them to get a shot.”

The play called for Howard to knife to the opposite block off a pick from Kaylee Wright. She snagged Schaaf’s pass and laid it in.

The fact that Schaaf, a senior who often sacrifices her own scoring to doing whatever her team needs her to do, didn’t call her own number says a lot about her leaderships, Weldon said.

“She’s been unselfish all year. She could score a lot more points. She scores about nine a game. She’s just unselfish and she’s team first,” Weldon said.

The first quarter had all the makings of the Wolverines avenging two earlier losses to the same Knights.

They hit all five of their first quarter three point attempts and led 19-5 heading into the second. The Knights, meanwhile, started cold, hitting 2-of-11 from the field first frame.

The Wolverines did cool off in the second but still led 24-13 heading into intermission.

But the Knights, who seemed a step slow in finding the Wolverines’ shooters and on defensive boards in the first half, showed signs of life midway through the third quarter with an 8-2 run to cut the lead to 26-21 with 3:53 to go in the frame.

“We talked at halftime about rebounding and defense,” Weldon said. “We kind of switched up our defense to a zone and we kept hitting on them to ‘Go find a body, box somebody out, get a rebound,’” Weldon said.
F-M would go on to out-score the Wolverines 15-8 in the quarter and cut the lead to just three heading into the final frame.

Twice in the fourth the Wolverines extended their lead to six only to see the Knights battle back. But East Mills appears to be in control on Alexandra Knop’s layup that made it 40-34 with 2:31 to go.

Neither team could muster a point over the next 1:45 until Howard took over.

Her second of two layups at :19.8 to go cut the lead to 40-39.

On the ensuing possession the Wolverines missed their second straight front end of a one-and-one to give the ball back to the Knights. With 16 seconds remaining.

Fremont-Mills first three attempts from point blank range set up the fateful final play and Howard’s game-winner.
Weldon credits his team’s comeback to not panicking and sticking to a plan.

“At the end of the first half, we wanted to have it down to 10 and we had it to 11,” Weldon said. “At the end of the third quarter, we wanted under five and we did that. In the fourth quarter, we kept at it and it was kind of methodical. They kept making shots and we get back in it and in the end we had just enough.”

The loss was hard for East Mills coach Blair Hollman to take. One of the toughest of his coaching careers in fact.

“This is one of the few times in my life I’ve been speechless after a game,” said after a long, emotional locker room talk with his team. “I don’t know what to say. I’ve coached a lot of sporting events and that was one of the toughest I’ve been a part of. The girls played with purpose.

“Everything they did was with one goal in mind and that was to win the game. And unfortunately there’s a winner and loser in every game. Tonight we just came out on the losing end. I can’t fault our girls’ effort.”

Howard scored the Knights’ final six points and finished with a team-high 12 points. Schaaf added nine and Hauschild eight.

Schraft and Rachel Schafer led the way for East Mills with 12 points each.