Makayla Baughman set her feet, settled in and called for the ball Wednesday from just beyond the 3-point line.
The Blair junior got her wish and sunk the straightaway 3, propelling her Class B No. 10 Bears past No. 9 Elkhorn for the first time since the 2013-14 season and into the Eastern Midlands Conference Tournament semifinals. Coach Matt Aschoff's team ultimately finished bracket play 1-2, though, ending the weekend with a 11-6 season record.
BHS claimed fourth in the six-team EMC after back-to-back losses to No. 3 Norris and Bennington. Saturday's 42-41, third-place game loss to the Badgers slipped through the Bears' fingers.
Playing on its home floor, BHS hit six first-half 3-pointers and led 28-16 going into the break. Baughman hit four of the six, finishing with a 14-point first half.
After the break, though, the Bears scored just 13 points total against Bennington's man-to-man defense.
“It was just man and we weren't being aggressive,” Aschoff said.
The Bears had earned 28 free throw attempts against the Badgers in the team's first meeting this season, but just seven Saturday, making three.
“If they play man, they're going to be on our your hip and we've got to be OK with that,” the coach recalled telling his players. But the message didn't quite land, and Bennington chipped away at BHS' lead.
The Badgers' Kennedy Gansebom hit the go-ahead bucket off of an offensive rebound with just about a minute left in the fourth period. From there, both teams score two points. Nessa McMillen scooped up a late steal to give the Bears one last shot, but it missed.
Two days earlier, Blair stuck with Norris — the third-ranked team in Class B — through three quarters before, ultimately, falling 54-39 after a 17-6 fourth quarter. The semifinals road game got out of the Bears' reach when the Titans hit their shots from long-range.
“They hit some 3s in the fourth and we had some turnovers,” Aschoff said, breaking Thursday's loss down.
Baughman led BHS with 16 points — her same total as Saturday — while senior Ella Ross notched 11.
“The second and fourth quarters hurt us,” Aschoff said after Blair actually led 16-15 through the first period. “But the girls played very hard and we were proud of their effort.”
BHS bests Elkhorn
The third-seeded Bears' EMC run started Wednesday with a home contest against Elkhorn. Behind six 3-point makes, BHS topped the Antlers for the first time in at least seven years.
In addition, Aschoff's team had just lost a regular season game to Elkhorn five days earlier.
“It just kind of fueled our fire,” junior Sami Murray said. “We knew they were expecting to win again, and nobody really thought we would win. It made us want it even more.”
“We were all just ready to win,” added freshman Kalli Ulven after her career-high 15-point night. “We were all thinking about this week about how bad we wanted to win.”
The Bears earned it despite falling behind 39-38 during the fourth period after leading most of the game. In response, freshman Leach Chance and Ulven scored back-to-back baskets on the block to push BHS ahead 42-39.
“My team helped me out a lot by moving the ball around,” Ulven said.
After a timeout with just 4:22 remaining in the first-round EMC game, Baughman nailed her aforementioned straightaway, long-range bomb to put the Bears ahead six. It was Blair's sixth 3-pointer of the game. The junior standout was also the fifth player on her team to knock one down. Ulven finished with two 3s, while Murray, Chance, Baughman and McMillen hit one apiece.
“I just think a lot of girls put in extra time,” Murray said of the performance. “After practice a lot of girls will stay for 30-, 45-minutes just shooting and working on it. And we're all really supportive of one another when we do.”
Ulven notched the team-high in points, while Baughman had 12 and Murray scored seven. Ross added six and Chance had five in the noteworthy victory.
