Eaton, on the other hand, had never climbed to the regional level until this season. The Eagles won their first-ever district championship on Friday to set up a regional semifinal matchup with Badin on Tuesday at Springfield High School. Tipoff is scheduled for 8 p.m. after the high-powered first semifinal between Kettering Alter, ranked No. 2 in the final Associated Press Division II state poll, and No. 3 Granville, a Columbus-area district champion.
The semifinal winners are scheduled to meet on Friday at 7 p.m. at Springfield for the regional championship and a trip to the state semifinals, scheduled for March 10 at University of Dayton Arena. The state championship game is scheduled for March 12 at 2 p.m. at Dayton.
While Alter and Granville have played at a high level all season, Tuesday’s second regional semifinal features two teams that got hot at the right time. Eaton, which plays in the Southwestern Buckeye League West Division, just reached .500 at 13-13 on Friday with its fifth straight win and sixth in the last seven games. The Eagles have won four tournament games, and their closest was a four-point win in the first round. They beat Dayton Carroll, a No. 1 seed and winner of the last three regional championships, by eight before upsetting another top seed, Summit Country Day, also by eight points on Friday.
Junior Olivia Baumann scored 15 points to lead Eaton, including a 3-pointer from the right corner with 2:44 left in the game that gave the Eagles the lead for good at 36-34. Senior Allison Mowen added 13 points for Eaton, which closed the game with a 17-3 run after trailing by eight in the last minute of the first half and by six 14 seconds into the fourth quarter.
“We were getting good shots, and we started knocking them down,” said Eagles coach Dave Honhart, formerly the head girls coach at Lakota East. “We try to be as relentless as we can be.
“We’re just going to keep trying to win the game in front of us,” he added.
Baumann and Mowen both were named to the SWBL West all-division first team.
Badin (20-6) has won six straight games and seven of the last eight, including four in the tournament. The first three were over teams that compete with Eaton in the SWBL West, including a 49-47 district semifinal win over division-champion Valley View in which the Rams had to bounce back from a 12-0 deficit.
They avoided that situation in the district championship game against Trotwood-Madison, gaining a 1-0 lead even before the clock started ticking when Trotwood-Madison was handed a technical foul for wearing the wrong uniforms. Badin pushed that lead to 10-0 and cruised to a 47-31 win.
Eaton did not play Alter (24-1) or Granville (24-1) this year. Badin didn’t play Granville, but the Rams lost both Greater Catholic League Co-Ed games against Alter, 56-50 at Badin and 52-42 at Alter.
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