WILLARD, Ohio — Top-seeded Bellevue pulled a rabbit out of its hat Saturday at Robert L. Haas Gymnasium.
Trailing by 10 points to start the fourth quarter, the Lady Red rallied to force overtime then outscored No. 4 seed Shelby 11-6 in the four-minute extra session for a 58-53 win in the Division II district championship game.
Bellevue (20-5) won its third straight district title and will play Toledo Rogers in the regional semifinals at 8 p.m. Tuesday at Ontario. Rogers, the top seed at the Anthony Wayne district, punched its ticket to the Sweet 16 with a 48-45 win over Toledo Central Catholic on Saturday.
“We got down by 10 points and we just told the girls, ‘We’ve got a lot of time left,’ ” Bellevue coach Kory Santoro said. “We just had to take one possessions at a time and get one stop at a time. Before you know it we hit a couple of 3s and we were right back in the game.”
The Lady Red opened the fourth on an 8-0 run. Freshman Payton Vogel sparked the run, hitting a 3-pointer before completing a traditional three-point play with 6:28 to go to cut Shelby’s lead to 38-36.
“The knocked down a 3, got a steal and hit a layup and it’s like it took the wind out of our sails a little bit,” Shelby coach Natalie Lantz said. “It shouldn’t be that we’re on our heels. We’re still up.”
Bellevue pulled even at 40-40 on freshman Olivia Baptista’s 3-pointer with 3:50 to play and took a 42-40 lead on a Lauren Turner layup with 3:22 to go, but the Whippets (19-7) scored five straight points and took a 45-42 lead on Jackie Garrett’s traditional three-point play with 1:36 remaining. Another Baptista triple tied the game at 45-45, but Garrett hit a short baseline jumper to give the Whippets a 47-45 advantage with 40 seconds play. Bellevue’s Jenna Strayer git both ends of a one-and-one with 13.6 seconds to play to tie it at 47-47. Shelby advanced the ball into the frontcourt and called timeout with 6.7 seconds to go, but misfired on a 3-pointer out of the break, sending the game to overtime.
Overtime: Bellevue scored the first four points of the extra period and never trailed again. Vogel converted both ends of a one-and-one before Baptista came up with a steal and converted a layup for a 51-47 advantage.
“That was huge to score first in overtime,” Santoro said. “We got up by four there. That was very important.”
Making matters worse for Shelby, Garrett was whistled for her fifth foul just 24 seconds into the four-minute OT session.
“We rely a lot on the speed of Jackie and (Kennadie Goth),” Lantz said. “Jackie fouling out there hurt us a little bit, but I’m proud of how hard that we tried to pick it up. We kept trying to attack.”
Bellevue had just one field goal in overtime. The Lady Red were 9 of 10 from the free throw line to seal it.
“We have struggled at times (from the free throw line) this year,” Santoro said. “We hit them when they counted.”
Leaders: Goth paced the Whippets with 17 points. Sienna King added 12 points, while Garrett and Maddi Fidler each had nine. Fidler grabbed a team-high eight rebounds.
Strayer led Bellevue with 18 points, five of which came in overtime. Vogel had 16 and Baptista added 13. Shalee Weider had a game-high 10 rebounds.
Not Again: A groan went up from the Bellevue crowd when the public address announcer informed fans the Lady Red would be playing Toledo Rogers in the regional semifinals. Rogers has beaten Bellevue in the regional championship game each of the past two years. In fact, Rogers has ended Bellevue’s season each of the past four years. Bellevue fell to Rogers in the district semifinals in 2013 and in the district championship game in 2012.
