History kind of has a way of repeating itself, and the Olpe Eagles are proving that once again.
The top-seeded Eagles cruised past fifth-seeded Hartford 50-18 in the semifinals of the Lyon County League Tournament on Friday night at White Auditorium. Olpe will play Waverly at 6 p.m. tonight in the championship bout. Olpe will be playing for its seventh consecutive LCL tourney title.
The last time the Eagles lost in the tournament was in 2005 against Waverly.
“They are a good matchup,” Olpe coach Jesse Nelson said of Waverly. “They’re at least as big as we are and maybe a little bit stronger. We’ll have to do a lot of things right to win. And that’s the way it should be in the championship game.”
While Friday’s game eventually turned into a blowout, the two defenses played strong the first four minutes of the game as only six points (all from Olpe) were on the scoreboard.
But the Eagles eventually got on a bit of a roll and ended the quarter up 13-2.
To start the second quarter, the Eagle offense went to the perimeter. Emily Samuels opened the quarter with a 3-pointer from the baseline. Elena Flott followed and hit another 3-pointer from the same spot to make it 19-2 and the rout was on. The Eagles also had eight offensive rebounds and led 26-7 at the half.
“When we really got things going, I think we have a nice mix of that inside outside game,” Nelson said. “And Hartford blocked a lot of shots tonight and that kind of held the inside stuff down a bit. But we were able to go outside some.”
The Jaguars were patient on the offensive end in the first half and had plenty of open looks but missed layups and shots from the interior hurt. The Jaguars, however, were much better in the third quarter when they scored nine points, but by then it was too late.
“We didn’t make our shots, and I didn’t think we moved the ball as well as we should have moved the ball,” Hartford coach Yvonne Gardner said. “We did keep them in the scoring range that we wanted to in the first half, but we didn’t score as many as we wanted to.”
Samuels led Olpe with 16 points. She also hit four 3-pointers in the game. Kendyl McDougald added 14 points and Flott had 11.
“Defensively I thought we played really well,” Nelson said. “In the first half I thought we got a little sloppy with the basketball and didn’t execute as well as we could have. But I thought we played with a lot of energy again tonight.”
Mikayla Wilson and Bronte’ Bailey led Hartford with six points each. Emily Prather had two points and four blocks in the game.
No. 2 Waverly advanced to the championship game by defeating No. 3 Madison 30-28 in the other semifinal contest. Hartford will play Madison in the third-place game at 3 p.m. today.
Friday at White Auditorium
Hartford 2 5 9 2 — 18
Olpe 13 13 15 9 — 50
HAR: Roush 2, Prather 2, Kirby 2, Bailey 6, Wilson 6.
OLPE: McDougald 14, Scheidegger 4, Haag 2, Redeker 2, Flott 11, Samuels 16, Benton 1.