WILLARD, Ohio — Nothing in the scouting report could have prepared Lexington for the onslaught laying in wait Thursday at the Robert L. Haas Gymnasium.
State-ranked Bellevue was better than advertised.
Carly Santoro scored 40 points and the Redmen bullied their way to an 83-33 win over Lady Lex in the first game of a Division II sectional championship doubleheader.
Bellevue (21-1) will play Sandusky Perkins in a district semifinal March 5 at Ashland High School. Perkins knocked off Shelby 66-52 in Thursday’s late game.
“Yesterday in practice I couldn’t hide the fact that Bellevue is a great team,” Lexington coach Mike Kathrein said. “What we were talking about yesterday and in the pregame was be aggressive. Don’t back down against a team like that.”
Young and inexperienced Lady Lex performed as well as could be expected. Lexington trailed 23-8 late in the first quarter, but ripped off a 7-0 run to pull within 23-15 early in the second after an Olivia Kearns 3-pointer. Bellevue outscored Lexington 27-4 over the final 6:45 of the first half for a 50-19 lead.
“We got off to a rough start,” said Bellevue coach Kory Santoro, Carly’s father. “We’ve got good shooters on our team and they just weren’t falling. We were missing layups, we were missing bunnies and we were forcing passes. We did a lot of things uncharacteristic of us.”
Sharp-Shooter: A 5-foot-10 senior guard and the recently-crowned District 6 Player of the Year, Santoro scored 17 of Bellevue’s 23 first-quarter points and had 25 at halftime. Santoro, who came in averaging 30 points a game, had 40 at the end of three quarters. She attempted one 3-pointer early in the fourth before being lifted for good.
The Bowling Green-bound Santoro was 14 for 25 from the field with four triples.
“We knew Santoro was going to score a bunch of points,” Kathrein said. “It didn’t matter what we did defensively. We tried man and they scored 25 points a quarter. We tried zone and they scored 28 points in a quarter. They were going to get their points.”
Veterans: Three of Bellevue’s starters and seven of the 12 players on Bellevue’s roster are seniors. Lexington, meanwhile, has just two seniors on the roster and one, Olivia Sterry, is injured. Lady Lex’s starting line featured senior Machaela Biddle, two sophomores and two freshmen.
“At one time I had three freshman, a sophomore and a senior on the floor,” Kathrein said. “Things are going to be much better in the future.
“Our girls got a look tonight at where they could if they keep working at it.”
Undersized sophomore point guard Whitney Wendling led Lady Lex with eight points. Freshman center Julia Kocher followed Tuesday’s 20-rebound performance against Galion with 14 boards and five steals.
“Whitney is a hard player not to like. She looks slight of build, but she is competitive,” Kathrein said. “Julia really battled on the boards.”
Strong Finish: After losing its first 20 games, Lex won two straight to reach Thursday’s sectional championship game.
“We learned how to play this year,” Kathrein said. “It was a long season and it had a lot of bumps in the road but they kept battling. That shows a lot of maturity for a team that is so young.”
“We learned how to play this year,” Coach Kathrein said. “It was a long season and it had a lot of bumps in the road but they kept battling. That shows a lot of maturity for a team that is so young.”
