Early foul hassle was no subject for Solon’s Callie Levin in the course of the Class 3A women basketball state championship sport between the No. 3 seed Spartans and prime seed Estherville-Lincoln Central Friday at Wells Fargo Area.
Levin picked up two fast fouls within the first 2:39 of the sport. However after a brief 85-second break, the Iowa recruit got here again in and led the Spartans to a state championship with a 54-47 victory.
“It is simply such a surreal feeling,” stated Solon guard Hailey Miller. “We have labored so laborious for this, and to lastly accomplish it’s such a tremendous feeling.”
Levin completed the sport with 27 factors, seven rebounds and 5 assists. Miller tallied 14 factors and 6 rebounds.
All-State guard Haylee Stokes paced ELC with a game-high 30 factors, together with 9 rebounds and 5 steals, in a dropping effort.
Solon completed the season at 24-3. Estherville-Lincoln Central additionally ended up with a 24-3 report.
After her two early fouls, Levin settled down and started to dominate the sport.
She scored 17 factors within the first half in serving to Solon construct a 28-22 lead. Her last factors of the half got here on a 3-pointer on the buzzer.
“It was so annoying getting these two fouls straight away, particularly with an enormous sport like this,” stated Levin. “I simply tried to return in there, do my factor and get the ball to my teammates.”
Within the third quarter ELC did a significantly better job defending Levin. Consequently, ELC rallied to take a 40-39 lead following a basket by Stokes early within the fourth quarter.
However Levin at all times had the reply. She transformed a three-point play with 5:52 left to offer Solon the lead for good and later delivered a dagger to ELC by hitting a 3-pointer with 2:01 left to cap a 12-0 run that gave the Spartans a 51-42 cushion.
“I used to be like, I am taking pictures this, and it went in and it was a dagger,” Levin stated. “I used to be like all proper, that is our sport.”
Levin was the star of the 3A women championship sport Friday.
Miller was additionally excellent. However Solon wouldn’t have gained the sport with out the heroic efforts of Anna Quillin and Mia Stahle.
On Thursday Stahle greater than doubled her season scoring common of 6.6 factors with 14 factors in the course of the Spartans’ 49-25 semifinal victory over Des Moines Christian. Within the championship sport she scored 9 extra factors, added two assists, and did what she may to defend Stokes earlier than fouling out.
“Mia may be very feisty on protection,” Miller stated. “She’ll rise up in you, provide you with no respiratory room and we’re so fortunate to have her, together with Kobi (Lietz).”
Lietz ended up with 4 factors and two rebounds and Delainey Durr added two boards off the bench.
Regardless of being listed at simply 5-8, Quillin was a rebound magnet for Solon. She adopted up six offensive rebounds towards DMC with a game-high 16 boards within the championship sport towards ELC.
“Anna is a beast on the boards,” Miller stated. “For the way not tall she is, she will be able to soar out of her thoughts and provides 100% effort 24\/7.”
Regardless that she didn’t rating on Friday, Quillin was an absolute power all week. She performed nice protection all three video games and completed with a 3A-record 40 rebounds for the match.
“Wow, that is fairly good,” stated Quillin upon listening to the information of her report. “This place is so surreal. To have the ability to play right here, to play nicely and play with my finest buddies in the entire world is one of the best feeling.”
Levin and Quillin have been each named to the 3A All-Match staff.
Estherville-Lincoln Central by no means trailed by greater than 10 factors your entire sport.
ELC took the lead early within the fourth quarter due to a 14-3 run that noticed Stokes rating eight factors and Hillary Ruschy hit two large 3-pointers.
Ruschy ended up with seven factors and 6 rebounds, Jasey Anderson six factors and 4 boards and Rylee Yager two factors and eight boards. Cara Schiltz chipped in two factors for ELC.
“It was an ideal sport,” stated Stokes. “Each groups have been actually powerful defensively and everybody made photographs at occasions. They only made extra photographs than us.”
Stokes was named captain of the 3A All-Match staff. She stated she loved going up towards Levin.
“She’s an ideal participant,” Stokes stated. “I feel she’ll do nice issues and he or she was actually enjoyable to play towards.”
Regardless that ELC got here up quick, Stokes stated the staff’s season was a hit.
“We had a troublesome schedule this 12 months,” Stokes stated. “We fought all season with six women taking part in and a pair nights we solely had 5 taking part in.”
Joe Randleman covers highschool sports activities for the Ames Tribune. Contact him at<\/em>jrandleman@gannett.com<\/em><\/a>. Observe him on Twitter at<\/em>@JoeRandleman<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n