MANSFIELD — The Tygers are peaking at just the right time.
The same can be said for the Colts.
Seventh-seeded Mansfield Senior and No. 3 Clear Fork will duke it out Thursday in the late game of a Division II district semifinal doubleheader at Ashland’s Arrow Arena.
Both teams were impressive in their sectional championship games Monday in Willard. Clear Fork held off ninth-seeded Kenton 52-43 before Senior High dispatched No. 2 Bellevue 66-38.
The Colts, who hadn’t won a sectional final since 2015, didn’t look like a team short on postseason experience Monday. Clear Fork opened the game on a 10-0 run and never trailed against Kenton.
“We’ve been playing in the same environment all year — a very loud crowd,” said 6-foot-4 senior center Bekah Conrad, who scored eight of her game-high 16 points in the opening quarter. “We had to get the jitters out because we haven’t been to a sectional championship in a while.”
What’s more, Clear Fork has won 20 games in a season for the first time since 1988. The Colts reached the Division III Final Four that year.
“We’ve won 20 games the last three years combined,” Clear Fork coach Scott Sellers said. “There’s building blocks that you go through. It’s hard to know how to win if you’ve never won and they’re finding out that they can win in this sport like they’ve grown up winning in every other sport.
“We want to keep that momentum going.”
If any team in Richland County knows about momentum, it’s Mansfield Senior. The Tygers have won four in a row, but none of those victories was more impressive than Monday’s 66-38 shellacking of tradition-rich Bellevue. Senior High outscored the Lady Red 29-11 in the fourth quarter and 46-20 in the second half.
“We were prepared for them,” said Mansfield Senior’s Ahmani Mitchell, who scored 17 of her 19 points in the decisive fourth quarter. “Everybody had to contribute.”
Senior High beat Clear Fork 53-48 in the opening round of the sectional tournament last year and claimed a sectional title before falling to Shelby in the district semifinals.
“We’re used to playing Clear Fork. We played them over the summer a bunch,” Mansfield Senior coach JeVar Hudgens said. “We have to contain Bekah, which is a tough task.”
Like Hudgens, Sellers is looking forward to the challenge awaiting his team in the district semifinals. The winner will play either Associated Press Division II poll champ and No. 1 seed Shelby or Sandusky Perkins in the district finals at 4 p.m. Saturday at Arrow Arena. Shelby and Perkins meet in Thursday’s early game.
“I like their guard play,” Sellers said of the Tygers. “I like coach Hudgens and what he is doing there.”
