Bellefontaine’s girls basketball team took gut punch after gut punch here Tuesday in a triple overtime Division II sectional final against Thurgood Marshall.
In the end, the ninth-seeded Chiefs simply ran out of gas — and nearly ran out of players — in a 72-64 loss to the sixth-seeded Cougars at Tecumseh High School.
“I couldn’t be more proud of these girls,” said Bellefontaine head coach Meghan Ashcraft. “To go through what they did and show the grit they did, I couldn’t ask for anymore of them. Our team slogan is ‘be the best version of yourself,’ and they were definitely the best version of themselves tonight.”
Bellefontaine, which ends it season with a record of 13-12, already was short handed before the game started as junior point guard Quinlan Zedeker did not dress after injuring her knee two games ago.
As the game wore on, fouls and injuries also took a toll on the Chiefs.
Starting forward Lexi Robinson suffered an ankle injury and had to sit out several minutes and starting guard Tiffany Boop also missed some time after being run into by a Thurgood Marshall player.
The fouls also piled up. By the end of the third overtime period, four of the
original starters fouled out.
Despite it all, Bellefontaine went toe-to-toe with the Cougars until Thurgood Marshall went on a 7-0 run in the final 2:10 of the third OT session to put the game away.
“I asked the girls in one of the timeouts in the second half if they remembered in preseason practice running down-and-backs and me telling them that there is going to be a time when you need that extra conditioning. I said ‘this is the time when we
need it.’”
Bellefontaine led for a large chunk of regulation time.
The Chiefs were in front 14-8 after the first quarter
and they led by as many as 10 points early in the second period before going into the halftime break with a five-point cushion.
Bellefontaine pushed its lead to nine points (35-26) after three quarters. The Cougars’ full-court press started to bother the Chiefs in the final period as Thurgood Marshall battled back.
TM opened the fourth quarter on a 10-2 run to get
within a point (37-36) with 4:23 remaining in the regulation.
A jumper by Laila Butler gave the Chiefs a three-point lead at the 3:10 mark, but the Cougars countered with a 4-0 spurt to lead 40-39 with 2:18 left. It was their first lead of the night.
A bucket by Alexza Clifton at the 1:49 mark put Bellefontaine back ahead at 41-40.
Read more from this story in Wednesday’s Examiner.