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- Val T.
- 20 minutes ago
- 5 min read
Hunter scores 6, but Oak Hill holds Lady Zs to season low for 2nd straight year
BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS
Sports Editor, RTC
Brailyn Hunter Lyla Bowers
WABASH — A score of 21 in blackjack beats the house.
Scoring 21 in a girls high school basketball sectional game often means your season is about to end.
For the Rochester girls basketball team, they ran into Oak Hill again in the sectional, and for the second straight year, they could only muster 21 points in a season-ending loss.
Brianna Dailey, Oak Hill’s 6-1 sophomore post player, posted a double-double with 12 points and 14 rebounds, and Erika Newhouse hit a pair of 3-pointers and added nine as the Lady Golden Eagles downed Rochester 32-21 in the Class 2A, Sectional 38 final at Wabash’s Coolman Gymnasium Saturday.
Oak Hill won despite a scoreless third quarter and a 2-for-9 free throw performance to claim their eighth sectional title in school history and their first since 2019. Oak Hill will play Alexandria at Marion at 4 p.m. this Saturday in a regional.
Brailyn Hunter scored six points, all in the first half, for Rochester, who finished 13-12. The Lady Zs had beaten Manchester and Lewis Cass by a combined total of three points to reach the final, but they remain without a sectional title since 2021.
They also lost to Oak Hill 39-21 in the 2025 sectional semifinals at Lewis Cass.
Though it is partially dependent on the sectional realignment that will come out in May, the rivalry might only be beginning. None of the 10 starting players in this game was a senior.
“To come out in the third quarter and hold Oak Hill to zero points just kind of says what we’ve been able to do and how in tune and in sync our defense has been and the confidence that they’ve played with,” Rochester coach Joel Burrus said. “The legs just weren’t there on the shots tonight. You could tell. And I’ll be honest: We got better looks than what I thought we might be able to get because they’re relentless.”
Though Rochester played twice in one day at the Small School Classic at Clinton Prairie Jan. 2, they had not played games on back-to-back days all season prior to Saturday. And their Friday game with Lewis Cass went two overtimes.
“I told Wilson there late when she went to the free throw line … ‘I know you don’t got legs right now, but you’ve got to find them somehow someway,’” Burrus said. “I think this helps you for the future because you know what this feels like, and you’ve got motivation to get back here. And these are real good teams that you’re playing.”
Rochester’s Hope Baugh had the only points by either team in the third quarter, a driving layup along the left baseline with 1:30 left that cut the Oak Hill lead to 21-15.
But after their third quarter drought, Oak Hill scored on their first two possessions of the fourth quarter. Dailey hit a 12-footer from the left baseline, and Newhouse made a 3-pointer from the right wing to get the lead back to 11.
Oak Hill would get the lead as big as 12 before Hunter penetrated and snapped a bounce pass to Jadyn Field for a layup.
A drive-and-kick 3-pointer from Aubrey Wilson to Lyla Bowers got the lead down to 28-21 with 3:16 left.
Bowers’ trey turned out to be Rochester's final points of the season.
A Wilson steal led to her being fouled at the other end on a drive in transition, but she missed both free throws.
Oak Hill’s Morgan Cates missed a 12-footer in the lane. Dailey rebounded and missed, but Dailey grabbed her own board and muscled the rebound back in.
The lead was back to nine with 2:36 left. Another Dailey layup off a Newhouse assist with 1:24 left was the final blow.
Only once this season had Oak Hill been held to fewer than 32 points; they average 50 per game.
“They’re just a load to deal with,” Burrus said. “To have to play Cass last night and then play these guys, it doesn’t really get much tougher. You can’t be in much of a tougher situation. And for us to come out here tonight, we just need to hit a couple more shots because it definitely wasn’t our defense.”
Rochester scored the first five points of the game on a 15-footer from freshman post player Ali Field and a top-of-the-key 3-pointer from Hunter, but Oak Hill went on a 16-1 run that bled into the second quarter.
Landri Hardman answered Hunter’s 3 with one of her own from the left wing, and another Hardman basket from the midrange with 18 seconds left in the quarter tied it.
Newhouse and Kora Pond hit treys on Oak Hill’s first two possessions of the second quarter to make it 11-5, and Pond split a pair of free throws with 6:32 left in the half to make it a seven-point game.
Wilson split a pair of free throws for Rochester, but Dailey scored on an inbounds pass, and Newhouse hit from the left baseline to complete the run and put Oak Hill up by 10.
Rochester would work their way back within 17-12 on a Hunter free throw, a Hunter pullup 15-footer and a Jadyn Field putback.
A short banker in the lane from Cates and a steal and layup from Dailey, a top sprinter on the Oak Hill track team, got the lead back to 21-12.
Wilson split a pair of free throws with 9.5 seconds left in the half.
And then the game sunk into quicksand for a quarter.
Oak Hill coach Kerri Barcomb said she knew it would be a physical game coming in.
“They’re very aggressive,” Barcomb said of Rochester’s 2-3 zone defense. “They cover the perimeter well. They do a great job with doubling down. They move that 2-3 very well. They make it hard to get inside of it. We knew the 2-3. We tried to do what we could to prepare for it. But they don’t make it easy.”
Oak Hill 32, Rochester 21
ROCHESTER (21) (13-12)
Aubrey Wilson 0 3-10 3, Brailyn Hunter 2 1-2 6, Adalyn Gonzalez 0 0-0 0, Jadyn Field 2 0-0 4, Ali Field 1 0-0 2, Lyla Bowers 1 1-2 4, Hope Baugh 1 0-0 2, Kyleigh Little 0 0-0 0, Kyla Conley 0 0-0 0, Bailey Smith 0 0-0 0, Alexandria Cortes-Gustafson 0 0-0 0, Jayla Miller 0 0-0 0
TEAM: 7 5-14 21
OAK HILL (32) (21-3)
Erika Newhouse 3 1-2 9, Landri Hardman 2 0-0 5, Kora Pond 1 1-2 4, Morgan Cates 1 0-2 2, Brianna Dailey 6 0-3 12, Marisela Sherron 0 0-0 0, Lilly Edwards 0 0-0 0, Ryleigh Myers 0 0-0 0
TEAM: 13 2-9 32
Three-point field goals:
Rochester 2 (Hunter, Bowers),
Oak Hill 4 (Newhouse 2, Hardman, Pond)
Total fouls: Rochester 13, Oak Hill 12
Fouled out: J. Field (RHS), 1:04, fourth
Turnovers: Rochester 15, Oak Hill 18
Score by quarters
Rochester 5 8 2 6 – 21
Oak Hill 5 16 0 11 – 32
