Lady Longhorns down Sparta, advance to state finals
MONTGOMERY — Marengo Academy (26-0) overcame an early deficit Thursday morning to take a 54-43 win over Sparta and advance to the AISA Class A state championship game.
The Lady Warriors established themselves as the more physical team right from the 9 a.m. tip-off and helped Marengo slog its way to a 10-8 deficit at the end of the first quarter.
“I told them going in they were going to bump you the whole game. That’s their game; to try to tire you out, press you full-court. They’re going to bump you. They’re going to foul you,” Marengo coach Danny Stenz said. “At first, we didn’t handle it well, the first quarter especially. We weren’t running through our offense. We kind of panicked a little bit and forgot what we were supposed to be doing on offense. We never could get it reversed, rolled out and reversed like we wanted to and get some double picks on the backside.”
The Lady Longhorns rallied for a 13-point second frame but held their collective breath as senior point guard Chandler Stenz hit the floor at the end of a sequence in which she absorbed a foul in the midst of shooting a jumper. Stenz stayed down for a few minutes and immediately left the game.
“I’ve got my blood pressure medicine. I started to pop them in right then,” Danny Stenz joked about the moment that he thought he had lost his point guard.
Stenz returned for the final two seconds of the first half and made her presence felt in the last two frames with six assists to drive the Marengo offense.
“If she would have had to stay out, it was going to be something major wrong (with her ankle),” Stenz said. “It would have been tough on us. Right now, ball-handling is at a premium.”
Stenz’s playmaking ability coupled with the relentless rebounding attack of the Lady Longhorns prompted Marengo to a 20-11 third quarter run.
“Once we got into halftime, we kind of figured out what we needed to do,” Stenz said. “We had Conner (Etheridge) and Brooke (Smyly) posting up on some shorter girls and we weren’t throwing it to them.”
The Lady Longhorns got 31 points of their post players and out-rebounded Sparta 46-33 in the contest while getting a team-high 13 boards from Andrea Edmonds.
Marengo got balanced scoring from its starters. Stenz had 11 points while Brooke Smyly had 10 points, nine rebounds and five blocks. Conner Etheridge added 10 points while Anna Michael Crocker had nine points and eight rebounds. Edmonds finished with eight points.
Alex Etheridge led Sparta with 16 points. Drew Ann Lambert had nine points and eight rebounds while Lisa Smith had 15 rebounds.
Marengo is set to play Friday at 6 p.m. in the title game against region rival Patrician Academy in the Catherine Dixon Roland Arena on the campus of Huntingdon College. Patrician punched its ticket to the game with a 63-52 win over Lakeside Thursday.
The Lady Longhorns’ last loss came exactly one year ago Friday when they fell to Lakeside 54-45 in the 2013 state finals.
