MASSILLON – The Loudonville girls basketball team was going to lose an hour of sleep Saturday due to daylight saving time anyway.
Facing New Middletown Springfield in a Division IV regional championship game at Massillon Perry High School, the Redbirds figured they might as well just stay up all night.
Behind a masterclass of a defensive performance, Loudonville swallowed up the Tigers 40-14 in a game that didn’t seem that close.
The No. 7-ranked Redbirds shut out Springfield (20-8) over the game’s final 12 minutes to become the first Ashland County basketball team to win 26 games (26-2) and the first Ashland-area team to advance to the Final Four since 2005.
The ‘Birds will face sixth-ranked Waterford (23-3) at 11 a.m. Thursday at the University of Dayton.
The Wildcats, and 6-foot-4 junior center Avery Wagner, overcame an 11-point halftime deficit to beat Berlin Hiland in overtime at Pickerington North High School. Waterford forced a couple of late turnovers and took control in the extra session to earn a 53-51 decision against the second-ranked Hawks (25-3).
“I told the girls on Friday during film, ‘This is one of the moments in your life that you’re going to look back on in 20 years and remember. … Let’s really try to cherish it on Saturday,’” LHS head coach Tyler Bates said. “I’ve got images from tonight that will be stuck in my head forever.”
“They’ve been the No. 1 seed all year in the region – they were the team everybody was looking up at,” Springfield head coach John Matisi said. “Just to be able to get here and compete with them, they are the real deal.”
The Tigers have made the Sweet 16 each of the last three seasons and were a Final Four team last March. In three years under Matisi, they are 65-17.
But on Saturday, Springfield had absolutely no chance against an LHS defense fueled by the physical post play of Alesha Felix and Corri Vermilya. The duo combined for 25 rebounds – six more than Springfield had as a team.
The last shot the Tigers made came with 4:30 remaining in the third quarter – a 3-pointer from lone senior Ava Vecchione that cut their deficit to 28-14.
Loudonville senior guard Sophia Spangler bounced in a left-handed shot from the left baseline as part of a three-point play three minutes later to make it 32-14. The Redbird faithful spent the rest of the game simply waiting to celebrate.
After the trophy presentation, the Loudonville high school and youth student sections both stormed the floor.
“Coach always tells us defense for offense and he says if we can’t make our shots we’ve got to lock down on defense,” said Spangler, the game’s only double-digit scorer (10 points), “and that’s what we did.”
The 14 points for Springfield were the fewest scored by any girls team in any of the 48 total Sweet 16 and Elite Eight games out of all four divisions in Ohio this season. The Tigers scored nine points in the first half and just five after intermission.
They managed only five field goals in the game, as Mahoning Valley Athletic Conference Player of the Year Jameka Brungard made her line shot from the field late in the first quarter.
“The physicality they play with is not something that we see,” Matisi said. “That’s kind of how we want to play.
“When the enrollment numbers came out in the summer, we saw they moved down (to Division IV) and we said, ‘Loudonville is going to be a problem.’ ”
The Redbirds were certainly that.
The tone was set by Felix, a 5-foot-9 junior post tasked with taking on the 5-11 Brungard in the paint. By game’s end, Felix nearly had as many rebounds (12) as the Tigers had points.
Brungard pulled down nine boards, but six of those came in the first quarter. The junior, averaging 15.9 points and 11.2 rebounds per game, didn’t take a comfortable shot all night.
“We knew coming into this game that we needed to front her and give her a tough time in the paint,” Felix said. “That’s probably the most physical post I’ve ever had to guard.”
Vermilya, who grabbed 13 rebounds herself, was emotional after the game when talking about Felix’s breakout night.
“I told every single person I talked to the whole week, ‘Alesha’s going to do it on defense,’ ” Vermilya said, “and I believed in that with everything in me. She did it and I’m just so proud of her.
“This win is because of her. She started it and we just backed her.”
Shockingly, Vermilya finished with just seven points – tied for the fewest of any LHS scorer on Saturday. The defending Division III Player of the Year entered the night averaging 27.5 points per game, but Saturday’s focus was clearly on the defensive end.
Bates said the last time he could remember Vermilya scoring fewer than 10 points was in a blowout sectional tournament win her sophomore season.
“I’m most proud because the last two years, if Corri would have scored single digits, we had no chance against anybody,” Bates said. “So to have that balance tonight from our kids – they were all locked in – it just shows that the hard work’s been paying off.
“She hasn’t been held under 20 most of her career and I know she does not care.”
With the Redbirds swarming, Springfield’s last field goal in the first half came from guard Kendall Maughan with 6:16 remaining.
It was 13-7 at that point, and LHS scored 27 of the game’s final 34 points. The Redbirds forced 13 turnovers and eviscerated the Tigers on the glass, 39-19.
Loudonville held 10 teams below 25 points this season, but Felix said Saturday was without a doubt the team’s best defensive effort.
“We kept getting stops on defense and they couldn’t get it in to (Brungard),” Felix said, “and we just kept turning them over and getting defensive rebounds.”
The Tigers were deadset on making players other than Vermilya beat them on the scoreboard, and the game had a sloppy offensive start for both teams.
The Redbirds led just 8-5 after the first quarter and the two foes combined to shoot no less than six airballs from 3-point range in the opening 11 minutes.
But Loudonville hit four of its five 3-pointers for the game in the first half – getting two from senior guard Jena Guilliams – and it slowly began turning into a runaway.
Guilliams matched Felix and Vermilya with seven points, while LHS freshman guard Mya Vermilya added nine.
“Just to put in all that hard work in the offseason, in the summer, in the spring and even in the fall,” Guilliams said, “this just means a lot to us.”
One of the most memorable moments came halfway through the second quarter. The referees stopped the game to clear parts of the court of clumps of lint from the white rally towels Loudonville fans brought to wave throughout the night.
Out of concern for player safety, the public address announcer had to ask the fans to stop waving the towels.
Bates said the school had received 600 of them in an overnight delivery. He then laughed and said he was a little frustrated that the stoppage was slowing down his team’s pace.
It was the only thing slowing the Redbirds on Saturday.
Now they face a Waterford team with a heavy dose of basketball excellence over the last decade. The Wildcats have now made the Final Four seven times since 2015, with state titles in 2022 and 2016.
Wagner was a key defensive stopper as a freshman for the team during its 2022 championship run.
Corri Vermilya said the team will be ready. The Redbirds are headed to Dayton, a destination they openly targeted for nearly a year now.
“We’re going to go play whoever we have to play to try and win a title,” Vermilya said.
The other Division IV state semifinal will follow Loudonville’s game and features No. 1-ranked Fort Loramie (26-2) against No. 4 Convoy Crestview (26-2).
Photos by Doug Haidet
Video by Doug Haidet for Richland Source.
Video by Doug Haidet for Richland Source.
Video by Doug Haidet for Richland Source.
Video by Doug Haidet for Richland Source.