Olmsted Falls punches ticket to Ohio girls basketball Division I regional final with win over Fremont Ross
SANDUSKY, Ohio - Olmsted Falls used a big second half to defeat Fremont Ross 61-41 on Wednesday night in an OHSAA Division I regional semifinal at Sandusky High School.
Olmsted Falls turned it on in the second half, outscoring Ross 31-13 over the final two quarters to pull away for the win.
The run started after Ross scored early in the third quarter to cut the Olmsted Falls lead to 33-32. After that, Danielle Cameron hit back-to-back 3-pointers and the Bulldogs were off and running, finishing the quarter on a 16-5 run to take a 49-35 lead into the final quarter.
The Bulldogs then scored 10 of the first 12 points in the fourth quarter to ice the game and advance to the regional final.
The teams were evenly matched throughout the entire first half, with Olmsted Falls leading 20-18 after the first and 30-28 at the half. But the Bulldogs made an adjustment during halftime that led to the second half run.
"Don't let their best players have their best game," Olmsted Falls head coach Jordan Eaton said. "They're a good team. I don't want to just single out three players and say that's all they have. That's not the case. But they're when their best three get going, they win every time. So we had to stop those girls and we had to be a little bit more alert."
After giving up 26 points combined to Destiny Robinson, Carma Johnson and Lyndi Wolf in the first half, Olmsted Falls changed the defensive philosophy for the final 16 minutes.
"Typically we play a lot of help defense and we don't necessarily worry about our matchups," Eaton said. "But in this instance, we just had to make an adjustment. We had to guard their best players better and be more alert as to where they were."
The change worked, as the trio combined for just nine points in the second half.
Olmsted Falls was paced by Cameron, who knocked down six 3-pointers and led all scorers with 27 points. This comes after she hit six 3-pointers in both the state semifinals and state championship game a year ago. But Cameron scored in different ways as well, such as driving the lane, cutting the the basket without the ball and grabbing offensive rebounds.
"Making threes is is great because they're worth the most points but you can't just play her as a shooter," Eaton said. "If you do that, she finds ways to score. So I just think the fact that she's complete and she hates to lose really helps."
And when Cameron wasn't scoring, she was setting up her teammates on offense and playing aggressive defense on the other end. That's why Eaton pounds the table for his senior when it comes to awards at the end of the season.
"Everybody wants to see a kid score a million points, but how about you know, make your team great," Eaton said. "That's what Danielle does. She makes her team great. I've heard a lot of talk about why Danielle hasn't been considered for some of those things and everybody says this because she's on a better team. And I wonder why that's a penalty. She's on a better team because she makes her teammates better."
Jessica Wolanin scored eight points for the Bulldogs, Maddie Cerovac and Emma Schaefer each had seven, Jesse Simon had six and Avery DeLisio and Emily Scina added three each.
Olmsted Falls hit 12 3-pointers in the game, led by Cameron with six, Wolanin with two and DeLisio, Simon, Schaefer and Scina with one each.
Ross was led by Robinson and Johnson with 12 points each. Wolf added 10 and Lanae' Tucker scored six.
The Bulldogs will face Massillon Jackson in the regional final on Saturday, March 9 at 1:00 pm.
Danielle Cameron of Olmsted Falls drives against Princeton in the 2023 OHSAA Division I state championship game.
Michael Noyes, SBLive Sports
-- Ryan Isley | ryan@scorebooklive.com | @sbliveoh
