Hillsboro ends championship season in district semifinals

LOGAN — A season not soon to be forgotten for the Hillsboro Lady Indians ended Wednesday evening in the Division IV SE District Semifinals, with the No. 4 seeded Lady Indians falling to the top-seeded Circleville Lady Tigers 56-37 at Logan High School. 

Hillsboro ended the season with an overall record of 15-9, as they went 9-1 in the Frontier Athletic Conference this season, winning a co-FAC championship. The conference title was Hillsboro’s first of any conference title in girls basketball in 25 years. 

“The last two years we ran 19-4 and 15-9, and the record doesn’t show the success we had this season and the challenging schedule we had.” HHS head coach Heather Storer said. “I told the girls in the locker room that the adversity they faced from the beginning of the season to now, and the way they fought through, and then winning a league championship, in my opinion, is even cooler than a tournament run.

“Some people might not feel that way, but I think a league championship is pretty darn cool, so I told them to hang their hats on that, and we’ll prep and start again next year.”

On Wednesday, the district semifinal game saw Hillsboro play close with Circleville (20-4) for one quarter as they trailed by just two points following the conclusion of the opening frame by an 11-9 score. From the second quarter through the fourth frame, turnovers and missed baskets forced Hillsboro to play with a deficit against Circleville, as they were outscored for the remainder of the game 45-28. 

Unofficially, the Lady Indians finished the game with 17 turnovers, with a majority of those in the first half. 

“We didn’t do a very good job of taking care of the basketball, and we didn’t finish really well around the rim, and we let them have a few too many offensive boards, and they (Circleville) got going,” Storer said. “It is a tournament style game, and when somebody gets hot, it is normally hard to slow them down when the momentum gets going. It was just a few too many things that didn't go our way, and we couldn’t turn it around.”

The first quarter for Hillsboro saw them jump out to an early 4-0 lead with two free throws from senior Kobie Miles and a layup by sophomore Ella Jordan. After two points by the Lady Tigers, Miles sank another free throw. 

Jordan led Hillsboro with 10 points, finishing the game with two two-point baskets and going 6-of-8 from the free-throw line. Miles ended the game with eight points for the Lady Indians, making a 3-pointer and she was 5-of-6 in her free throw attempts.  

The Lady Tigers regained a one-point lead with a layup following a Lady Indians’ turnover by Juliana Sims-Ross as she finished the game with seven points. 

That basket was equaled with a bucket from HHS junior Tylee Davis, taking the ball the length of the court for two points with 2:22 left in the first for a 7-6 Lady Indians’ lead. 

Davis totaled nine points for Hillsboro, collecting four two-point baskets and she was 1-of-2 from the free-throw line. 

The lead went back to Circleville with a basket by Mallory McConnell — who led CHS with 13 points — but HHS gained what would be their final lead of the game with a put-back basket by Davis with 49 seconds left in the first quarter. 

Circleville ended the first frame with a 3-pointer by Kaylee West — who finished with eight points — for an 11-9 advantage. That basket was the beginning of a 16-0 run for Circleville, because in the second frame they scored their first 13 points of the quarter, holding a 15-point lead of 24-9 with around 2:00 left in the quarter.

Circleville’s scoring run to start the second included a three-point play by Addison Edgington, two free throws by Maddie Blakeman, a 3-pointer from Sims-Ross, a layup following an HHS turnover by Edgington and a 3-pointer from Brooklyn Cramer. 

Edgington — who is 6-2 and dominated the paint — totaled 10 points for the Lady Tigers, and Cramer ended the game with nine points. Also with nine points for the game was Blakeman. 

Storer spoke about preparing for a player as tall as Edgington.

“You can prep for that all you want, but if you don’t have someone like that to practice against, it’s tough,” she said. “What we like to do is drive and we like to kick, and we like to finish inside, and as you can see we were a little timid to get downhill and drive against her. We were a little scared to get our shots blocked, and that’s understood, but I don’t think we were tough enough getting to the paint. You know she’s in there, and it is always going to be in their head, so that’s part of it. You prep for it the best you can and get them ready as best as you can, and we just weren’t ready for that yet.”

Hillsboro put an end to that run with a jumper from Taylor-Ann Scruggs, but a 3-pointer from Circleville’s West pushed the Lady Tigers’ lead to 16 points with 1:40 left in the first half. HHS scored the final two points of the second with a jumper from Parker Wilkin, leaving the score 27-13 at halftime with Hillsboro trailing by 14 points. 

Circleville outscored Hillsboro 13-12 in the third quarter as the Lady Tigers’ lead was as much as 18 points with 6:31 left in the frame after they began the frame with four straight points. 

Hillsboro responded with two jumpers by junior Annia Young, and later it was Miles making two free throws, followed by a free throw made by Young and a layup by Davis for five straight Hillsboro points, cutting Circleville’s lead to 11 points with 3:06 left in the frame. Young finished the game with five points. 

By the time the third frame ended, the Lady Tigers held a 15-point lead at 40-25 as Hillsboro’s final points of the third included free throws made by Jordan and Scruggs. That same span, Circleville’s Blakeman scored their final seven points. 

Circleville scored seven of the first nine points of the fourth frame off baskets from Edgington and McConnell, with Hillboro’s two points in that span coming from an off-balanced shot and basket by Davis. 

Hillsboro got as close as 11 points of tying the score and trailed by as many as 20 points twice in the fourth quarter. The rest of the fourth-quarter scoring was from Jordan (six points), a free throw from Davis and a 3-pointer by Miles, as HHS was outscored in the final frame 16-12. 

Other final scoring totals for HHS were Scruggs with three points and Wilkin with two points. As a team, the Lady Indians totaled 10 two-point baskets, one 3-pointer, and they were 14-of-20 from the free-throw line. 

Team totals for Circleville were 12 two-point baskets, seven 3-pointers, and they were 11-of-15 from the free-throw line. 

No. 1 seeded Circleville will now face No. 2 seeded Logan Elm in the district finals on Saturday at Logan High School at 1 p.m. 

Hillsboro has one senior this season, four-year starter Kobie Miles, as Storer spoke about the importance of Miles at Hillsboro. Miles started every game of her four-year varsity career. 

“That kid has been with me since I got here at Hillsboro, and she was a little freshman with braces in her mouth and little bangs hanging down, and pictures from her freshman year to now, you almost don't recognize her,” Storer said. “That kid's grown up with us these past four years, and I told her she’s been a program-forming kid.

“We lost a senior last year that was a part of that, but Kobie has been her all four years, and Kobie has started every single game for me, and there aren’t very many kids who can say they started all four years in their career and had as successful of a career as she has. It is going to be a whole lot different without her, without her in practice. She’s the lighthearted kid, always has a smile on her face and you can trust her to do anything she needs to do. She’s a hard worker, and this program wouldn't be where it is today without her.”

BOX SCORE
HHS    09 04 12 12 — 37
CHS    11 16 13 16 — 56

CIRCLEVILLE (56) — B.Cramer 1 (1) 4-4 9, M.Blakeman 1 (1) 4-6 9, J.Sims-Ross 2 (1) 0-2 7, K.West 0 (2) 2-2 8, A.Edgington 5 (0) 0-0 10, M.McConnell 3 (2) 1-1 13. TOTALS: 12 (7) 11-15 56. 

HILLSBORO (37) — E.Jordan 2 (0) 6-8 10, K.Miles 0 (1) 5-6 8, T.Davis 4 (0) 1-2 9, Pa.Wilkin 1 (0) 0-0 2, T.Scruggs 1 (0) 1-2 3, A.Young 2 (0) 1-2 5. TOTALS: 10 (1) 14-20 37.