LIBERTY TWP. — Talawanda High School senior Kylee Fears can make an impact at just about any time — all while hunkered down in foul trouble.
Fears scored a game-high 28 points and had 10 rebounds, junior Myah Keene added 12 points and No. 6 seed Talawanda remained unbeaten with its 52-45 Division I sectional victory over No. 13 Milford on Thursday night at Lakota East.
“I just think the fact that she is out there — even if she doesn’t do much on defense — it’s her presence,” Brave coach Mary Jo Huismann said of Fears, who was slapped with her fourth foul at the 4:16 mark of the third quarter with the score tied at 30-30.
Fears, the Southwest Ohio Conference’s Player of the Year averaging 20.8 points and 15.3 rebounds a contest, hit the bench until close to the end of the quarter.
“Coach was like, ‘What do we do? What do we do?” Fears said. “I said, ‘Coach, I can do this. Put me back in.’
“I was very grateful that my teammates played really great defense and helped us out in that sense,” Fears added. “I really didn’t have to worry about it as much, so I could focus my efforts on the offensive end. But I really appreciated Coach for having that trust in me.”
Fears laid one in right before the third-quarter buzzer sounded to send Talawanda (23-0) into the final frame with a 36-35 lead.
Fears later rattled off seven straight points and Keene added a bucket to give Talawanda its largest lead of the night at 49-42 with 2:31 left to play.
Milford’s Jessica Correll drained a 3-pointer to cut Talawanda’s lead to 49-45 with 2:05 remaining, and that would be the last time the Eagles would score.
Brave senior Taylor Farris swatted a Milford shot, and junior McKenna Weekley saved it from going out of bounds to excite the Brave crowd before Farris eventually knocked down a couple of free throws to clinch it.
“They were so confident,” Huismann said. “Every timeout, they were like, ‘We’ve got this, Coach. We’ve got this. We’re together.’ They convinced me. … That’s what we need. That’s what you need to do. With a good team, that’s what happens.”
Milford guard Katie Tatum scored a team-high 12 points, while Miah O’Toole had 10. Violet Shuluga added seven points and 10 rebounds for the Eagles, who finished the season at 13-11.
Huismann credited junior Rose Bothast-Revalee for providing a defensive spark during her 5:34 of playing time and hitting a 3-pointer that sent Talawanda into the halftime break on top 25-23.
“All week I was telling her, ‘You might guard this one, you might guard that one. So pay attention to all of them,’” Huismann said of Bothast-Revalee. “And she was ready. I know she didn’t play long, but that was huge. What she did was huge.”
Talawanda faces No. 5 Mount Notre Dame in the sectional finals on Tuesday, Feb. 21, at 6 p.m. at Lakota East.
“In the locker room at halftime, we knew we didn’t start out great in the first half,” Keene said. “We said, ‘Let’s play together as a team. Let’s do our thing.’ That’s what we did.”
