SPRINGFIELD — Without the services of leading scorer Libby Evanshine for the final 13:31 because of an injury and point guard Jordan Collom for the final 3:42 because of fouling out, East Clinton fought off a furious Anna comeback to claim its second straight Sweet 16 berth with a 58-51 victory in a Division III girls district final Saturday at Springfield High School.
The Astros (24-2) advance to the Division III Region 12 bracket to take on Versailles (16-10), out of the Midwest Athletic Conference, at 8 p.m. Wednesday back at Springfield High School at 8 p.m. Versailles earned its spot in the regional with a 38-21 win over Madeira Saturday at Springfield.
EC led 39-19 at the 4:33 mark of the third quarter before the Rockets started slowly digging out of their hole. Anna pulled within 50-46 with 1:42 left in the game and trailed 52-48 with 1:21 to go.
That would be as close as the Rockets would get as the Astros held them off going 6-of-11 at the charity stripe down the stretch.
“In 40 years of coaching, that’s probably as gutty of a win I’ve been associated with,” EC head coach Bill Bean said. “We kept battling and pulled it out.
“I didn’t expect anything else out of this bunch, the way they’ve been for the last three or four years. They’re just battlers.”
Kami Whiteaker, who led the Astros with 16 points, hit four of her six free throws in the final 81 seconds. For the whole fourth quarter, she went 10-of-13 from the line. She moved to point guard when Collom fouled out with 10 points.
“She stepped up in crucial situations when we were up three or four and put us up five or six,” Bean said.
EC super sub Megan Tong added 11 — on a pair of free throws with 20.5 seconds remaining in the contest to make it 57-48, a pair of treys late in the second quarter to send the Astros into the break with a 33-16 cushion, and a free throw and a duece during East Clinton’s 11-2 run to start the game.
Her first free throw came 19 seconds into the game when she was pressed into duty to make the attempt for a shaken up Whiteaker after her game-opening three-pointer.
“The last five or six games, she has played very big for us,” Bean said about Tong. “She’s accepted her role. She never complains. She works hard in practice. I can’t say enough about Megan Tong and what she’s done the whole time, but really the last five or six games.”
Anna (16-10) answered EC’s game-opening run with a 9-2 spurt to pull within 13-11 after a quarter.
After trading baskets to start the second quarter, the Astros rattled off 10 straight points to build a 26-13 advantage. EC also would score the last six points of the half.
Jayden Murphy, who hit three from behind the arc on the afternoon, started the second half with one to give EC its first 20-point margin, 36-16.
“She’s always been a good shooter for us,” Bean said. “She hit a couple threes at crucial times. She has really picked up her overall game, especially on the defensive end.”
SUMMARY
Feb 25, 2023
Division III Southwest District
Girls Basketball Championship
@Springfield High School
East Clinton 58, Anna 51
A^11^5^12^23^^51
EC^13^20^9^16^^58
(51) ANNA (fg-3fg-ft-tp) Poeppelman 1-0-3-5, Cobb 5-1-5-16, Pettus 1-0-0-2, Wolters 4-4-12, Huber, 1-1-0-3, Staudter 3-3-1-10, Reed 1-0-1-3, McEldowney 0-0-0-0, Irick 0-0-0-0. TOTALS 16-5-14-51
(58) EAST CLINTON (fg-3fg-ft-tp) Collom 2-2-4-10 Evanshine 1-0-4-6 Whiteaker 2-2-10-16 Jones 3-0-0-6 Murphy 3-3-0-9 Tong 3-2-3-11 Stonewall 0-0-0-0 Hadley 0-0-0-0 TOTALS 14-9-21-58
FIELD GOALS: EC (14-35); A (16-57)
3 PT FIELD GOALS: EC (9-19) Murphy 3-5, Tong 2-5, Coll0m 2-4; A (5-20) Staudter 3-6
FREE THROWS: EC (21-31) Whiteaker 10-13; A (14-22)
REBOUNDS: EC-28 (Murphy 8, Collom 5, Tong 5, Evanshine 4, Whiteaker 3, Jones 1, Stonewall 1); A-34 (Wolters 6, Reed 6, Huber 5, Pettus 5)
ASSISTS: EC-10 (Collom 6, Stonewall 2, Hadley 1, Jones 1); A-6 (Reed 3)
STEALS: EC-8 (Tong 3, Murphy 3, Evanshine 1, Collom 1); A-13 (Reed 4, Wolters 3, Cobb 3)
BLOCKS: EC-5 (Murphy 2, Jones 2, Whiteaker 1); A-2
TURNOVERS: EC-17; A-12
