ASHLAND — Clear Fork coach Scott Sellers may have sounded crazy, but his logic was sound.
“I’m the only one in the state who wanted to play Shelby three times this year,” Sellers said after his third-seeded Colts knocked off No. 7 Mansfield Senior in the nightcap of a Division II district semifinal doubleheader Thursday at Arrow Arena.
A third meeting with the top-seeded and undefeated Whippets could only come in the district championship game, which is where the Colts (21-4) find themselves for the first time in a very long time.
Just how long is up for debate, however, as Sellers wasn’t sure when Clear Fork made its last district finals appearance.
“I don’t know, probably the ’80s,” Sellers said. “We just tied the single-season mark for wins at 21.
“I can’t even believe it. We had 20 wins (combined) the last three seasons and we have 21 this year.”
Clear Fork won back-to-back district titles in 1988 and 1989. The ’88 Colts reached the Division III Final Four, joining the 1985 Colts as the only two teams in program history to play in the state tournament.
More recently, Clear Fork won three straight sectional titles from 2013 to 2015. Each time the Colts were eliminated in the district semifinals.
Like Clear Fork, Shelby is looking to end a lengthy district championship drought. The Whippets have been to the district tournament 13 of the past 16 seasons but haven’t been able to break down the door.
“I don’t know that the district tournament has been the road block. We’ve been our own road block,” said Shelby coach Natalie Lantz, who helped lead the Whippets to the Division II state championship game as a junior in 1992 before playing collegiately at Ohio University.
“We definitely have the kids. They just have that competitive drive this year.”
Both Shelby and Clear Fork are members of the Mid-Ohio Athletic Conference and the Whippets (25-0) swept the season series en route to their fourth straight MOAC title and the Associated Press Division II poll championship.
The Whippets battled some late-season adversity after senior Haylee Baker, a Baldwin-Wallace recruit, partially tore a knee ligament.
Sophomore Mallary Gundrum replaced Baker in the starting lineup and scored 18 points in Thursday’s 56-52 win over Sandusky Perkins, while freshman Eve Schwemley has worked her way into the rotation and hit a big 3-pointer Thursday.
“I couldn’t be more proud of those two for stepping up in a really really big way,” Lantz said.
The Colts had an easier go of it in Thursday’s late game, never trailing after midway through the first quarter in a 48-38 win over Mansfield Senior.
Senior center Bekah Conrad led the way with 19 points, 13 in the second half.
“She’s having fun and she’s just really playing well,” Sellers said of the 6-foot-4 Conrad. “She’s playing like a senior and she’s playing like the leader she is. The hard work is paying off for her.”
It should make for an exciting afternoon at Ashland’s Arrow Arena. The district championship game is scheduled to tip off at 4 p.m. Saturday.
“They’re just so good. Everybody knows that,” Sellers said of the Whippets. “We have two MOAC teams playing for a district championship. That should say something about our conference and how tough it is.
“I just have a lot of respect for Shelby and I know they’ll come to play as hard as they can and we’re going to try to do the same and we’ll see what happens.”
