INDIAN HILL — Outscored 20-2 in the third period, the Wilmington Hurricane girls basketball season came to a close Monday with a 65-25 loss to No. 2 seed Hamilton Badin in a Division II Sectional championship at Indian Hill High School.

The loss put the Hurricane at 13-11 on the year. The team won their first two tournament games against Indian Hill and Roger Bacon.

“I’m very proud, just the growth they had from the beginning of the season to the end of the season,” said Hurricane head coach Zach Williams. “Learning from their mistakes, growing as a team, being able to come together and overcome adversity which they didn’t do so well with at the beginning of the season. They learned to overcome as the season went on.”

Despite the loss, Wilmington is graduating only one senior in star big Taija Walker. The rest of their cast returns next year and looks to make another, longer tournament run.

“I think there’s a lot of promise coming up. It’s a young group,” said Williams. “We’re gonna miss Taija tremendously with her size and experience that she brought through the four years, but there’s a lot of hunger in that group and a lot of girls that get after it, so there’s good things to come for Hurricane basketball.”

The game couldn’t have started much worse for the Hurricane. After a long Badin possession, the Rams struck first on their way to a 7-0 run. Elle Martin finally put Wilmington on the board but that basket was countered instantly when Gracie Cosgrove knocked down a long three.

Wilmington was able to put in another basket before the Rams went on an 11-0 run. Miya Nance found her way inside for a nice mid-range jump shot to end the quarter, but the Hurricane still entered the second down 18-6.

Wilmington opened the second with a well drawn-up play for Nance to score three, but the Rams didn’t let that impede their momentum scoring the next two baskets. Wilmington strung together several baskets and following a long three from Badin, the two sides remained fairly close the rest of the half, 32-19.

In the third, though, everything went wrong for WHS. The Rams scored the first 20 points did not allow a Hurricane bucket until there were just 29 seconds left in the quarter. The 20 points were as many as Wilmington allowed against Indian Hill the whole game.

SUMMARY

Feb 26, 2024

Sectional Championship

@ Indian Hill High School

Badin 56, Wilmington 25

B^18^14^20^4^^56

W^6^13^2^4^^25

(25) WILMINGTON (fg-3fg-ft-tp) Brown 0-0-0-0, A. Martin 0-0-0-0, Nance 3-1-0-7, Hudson 0-0-0-0, Conley 2-0-0-4, Cole 0-0-0-0, E. Martin 2-0-3-7, Bayless 1-1-0-3, Tippett 1-0-0-2, Walker 1-0-0-2. TOTALS 10-2-3-25

(56) BADIN (fg-3fg-ft-tp) MacGowan 0-0-0-0, Even 7-0-2-16, Weber 3-3-0-9, Goldberg 0-0-0-0, Pate 4-1-2-11, Marshall 1-0-1-3, Cosgrove 4-3-2-13, Niesen 0-0-0-0, Broermann 0-0-0-0, Kollstedt 0-0-0-0, Sakach 0-0-0-0, Baker 0-0-0-0, Butler 0-0-0-0, Mulcare 0-0-2-2, Sebastian 1-0-0-2 TOTALS 20-7-9-56