Hardwood Heroes Sports
Lady Bulldogs Knock off Meigs; Pick Up First Tournament Win Since 2015
By: Joey Madore
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It was the same teams, same stakes, just 365 days later when the Athens Lady Bulldogs met the Meigs Lady Marauders in the first round of the playoffs Monday night.
These two teams met in the same round of the postseason a year ago, and Meigs took down Athens handily 54-27.
The story would be different this time around however, as Athens was able to avenge the loss from a year ago as well two regular season losses, and knocked off the Lady Marauders 54-47.
Youth had been a hot topic about this Athens team throughout the season, but they showed steady improvement throughout the season cultivating in a playoff victory that Head Coach Seth Matheny can be very proud of.
“The girls executed very well,” Matheny said. “I thought we shared the basketball very well. I thought we played really solid team defense and anticipated really well.”
The game started out sloppy for both sides in the first half. The teams combined for 29 turnovers and neither team could get going from the field as Meigs shot just 28% from the field and the Lady Bulldogs were not much better, shooting just 19% on the hardwood. The Lady Marauders took a one point lead into halftime with Hannah Durst leading in scoring with seven points.
Whatever Matheny said to his girls during the halftime break did wonders because the Lady Bulldogs came out of the break firing on all cylinders.
With efforts from Cassie Federspiel and Laura Manderick, who both finished in double figures, Athens doubled their score in the third quarter to take a 38-30 lead into the fourth quarter.
Federspiel is one of the underclassmen for the Lady Bulldogs this year who has had to step into the starting lineup and play a lot of minutes. Coach Matheny had high praise for her 16-point performance.
“Cassie plays hard, and it showed tonight,” Matheny said. “She has the talent inside of her, she just has to have the confidence in herself. A performance like this helps her a ton, and it also helps to take some of the pressure off Laura.”
Laura Manderick was able to eclipse 1,300 points in her high school career during the third quarter as well. One of the many things she has achieved in her four years in the green and white.
Athens would lead the game the rest of the way despite a couple of late game comeback attempts by the Lady Marauders and take home the victory back to The Plains.
This is the Lady Bulldogs’ first win in the tournament since 2015 and now they will have to travel to Adena high school on Thursday to take on the undefeated number one seed Circleville.
“They are a phenomenal team, we are going to have to play all four quarters,” Matheny said. “We have a lot of preparing to do between now and Thursday night, and we’re going to make sure we’re ready for it.”