The Lady Aces are one win away from their third straight trip to the Sweet 16 after grinding out a 49-36 win over Meade County in the semifinals of the 3rd Region tournament Friday night.
Owensboro Catholic (24-10) advances to play Muhlenberg County (23-10) in the championship at 3 p.m. Sunday. The Lady Mustangs held on for a 41-38 win over Breckinridge County in the other semifinal game.
“I’m just happy,” said Owensboro Catholic head coach Michael Robertson. “We’re back here with a chance to go to Rupp Arena. We’ve got to play a tough one on Sunday. We get back to work tomorrow morning.”
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For more photos from the game, click here.
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Owensboro Catholic’s defense was stifling, locking down one of the top offenses — and the top individual scorer — in the state. The Lady Waves entered the contest averaging 66.8 points (7th most), led by Kendall Wingler’s 30.8 points per game.
Held in check for most of the night by Catholic’s Spencer Harvey, Wingler finished with 13 points on just nine shots. Meade County tied their lowest scoring output of the season — the other time coming in a game Wingler didn’t play.
“Wingler is a heck of a player,” Robertson said. “We held her to 13 points. Spencer did an unbelievable job on her. She couldn’t breathe.”
The Lady Aces had to shake some early nerves at the other end of the floor, as they were unable to get clean looks and struggled with turnovers in the opening minutes.
A 3-pointer by Harvey sparked a 7-0 run, but a pair of buckets for Meade County put the Lady Waves up 8-7 after the first quarter.
Catholic tied the game at 12-all with another 3 from Harvey before Meade went on a quick 6-0 run.
Isabella Henning took over the game from there. She knocked down a triple from the left wing, hit a free throw and scored on a putback to knot the game at 18-all with 3:25 left in the half.
Two free throws from Harvey put the Lady Aces up for good, while a pair of putbacks from Hannah McKay and a drive by Henning pushed their lead to 26-20 by halftime.
Meade got within two points three times in the third quarter. Henning nailed a mid-range jumper, scored on a cut to the basket and added a free throw to help preserve the lead.
“I told Isabella to calm down because she was worse than me (in the first quarter),” Robertson said. “She relaxed, and she took over. She’s a gamer. When the game’s on the line, you can trust her with the ball for the most part. She’s going to make the right decisions.”
Catherine Head’s 3-pointer pushed the lead back to five points, but Wingler hit one of her own with 30 seconds left in the quarter to get Meade within 34-31 heading into the final period. It was the closest they ever got down the stretch.
McKay quickly scored on a putback to start the fourth, and the Lady Aces started to drain the clock. Meade was eventually forced to foul, but Catholic was able to knock down their free throws.
A steal and score by Henning iced the game at 47-36 with 48.5 seconds left.
Henning led all scorers with 20 points and added eight rebounds. McKay scored in the closing seconds to finish with 11 points and 13 rebounds for yet another double-double. Harvey added 10 points.
Robertson said every player who stepped on the court for Catholic played a role in getting the win.
“Everybody played their butts off,” Robertson said. “We’ve told them what to do, how to react, who we wanted shooting the ball, where we wanted the ball shot at, and those ladies did a heck of a job. I’m super proud of them. I just felt like that was a team game. We played hard.”
The Lady Aces will now try to win their third consecutive region championship and fourth in the last five years. Muhlenberg last played in the title game in 2018 (a 55-45 loss to Catholic) and they last won it all in 2015 (a 58-56 win over Catholic).
The two met once this year, when the Lady Mustangs topped the Lady Aces 52-46 at the Sportscenter on Jan. 28. Catholic has gone 9-1 since then and is on a five-game win streak. Muhlenberg has gone 5-6 during that stretch and is on a three-game win streak.
BOX SCORE
OCHS 7-19-8-15—49
MCHS 8-12-11-5—36
OCHS (49): Isabella Henning (20), Hannah McKay (11), Spencer Harvey (10), Catherine Head (4), Ally Maggard (3), Caroline Reid (1)
MCHS (36): Kendall Wingler (13), D Griffen (12), Aubrey Hardesty (6), Peyton Bradley (3), Jenna Gallimore (2)
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