When the Bishop Grimes girls basketball team got a look at the Section III Class B playoff bracket, it saw all kinds of familiar faces standing in the way of a trip to the March 7 finals at SRC Arena, with four members of the OHSL Liberty division positioned in the bracket.
But no one could have dreamed that the first of these league foes would bring the championship dreams of the state no. 3-ranked Cobras crashing down.
Ignoring its no. 8 seed, and remembering its long history of playing well in sectional tournaments, Westhill shocked the Cobras 45-43 in Friday night’s Class B quarterfinal, getting a richly deserved result from a contest that, for Grimes, was ominous from the outset.
Westhill had handled General Brown 61-39 in the opening round, getting a career-best 31 points from Delaney Martin. And it had played Grimes tough in both of their regular-season meetings Dec. 5 and Jan. 31, though the Cobras won those games by margins of 45-34 and 57-40.
Most of all, though, the vast experience Warriors head coach Sue Ludwig had gained through years of post-season battles made Westhill as dangerous an opening foe as Grimes could want.
Remembering what had not worked in those first two games, the Warriors drew up a defensive scheme where the Warriors would concentrate its pressure on forward Azariah Wade and guard Jordan Vaught, eschewing a man-to-man look and daring the other Cobras players to beat them.
While Vaught still managed to score a game-high 16 points, Wade only had eight points, and her teammates struggled, too, opening the door that Westhill would break through.
Trailing most of the first half, Grimes faced a 27-22 deficit at intermission, only to catch up in the third quarter and grab a 35-30 lead at one point late in that period.
By now, though, Westhill had gained the confidence it would need for a tense homestretch, and even though it started an eighth-grader (Mackenzie Martin), two freshmen (Morgan Elmer and Katelyn Karleski) and two juniors (Mary Kate Washburn and Delaney Martin), the Warriors showed the poise of a veteran team when it counted the most.
Westhill rallied to tie it, 41-41 late in regulation and regained the lead when Elmer, who already had a pair of 3-pointers, struck again from beyond the arc with 1:20 left. Grimes missed, the Warriors got the rebound and Mary Kate Washburn converted to make it 46-41.
Washburn’s basket was needed, since Grimes’ Katy McInerney hit a 3-pointer with 2.4 seconds left, and the Cobras got the ball back just long enough for Vaught to launch a possible winning shot – but it flew wide of the target.
And just like that, it had ended, an 18-2 season that saw Grimes snare league honors and rise as high as no. 2 in the state rankings. Vaught, who notched more than 1,000 points in her career, departs, as does Teresa Shattuck, Maria Gronau, Alissa Warner and Julia Freeman.
But the presence of Wade, Katy McInerney, Molly McInerney, Brianna Squier, Kyra Grimshaw, and Marissa Hartley will make the Cobras tough again in 2015-16 – and so will the memory of seeing a magical season halt far earlier than anyone could have anticipated.
