Basket-Baugh-ll hero: Frosh’s trey with 0.4 seconds left in 2nd OT sends Rochester to sectional final

BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS

Sports Editor, RTC

Hope Baugh Aubrey Wilson

WABASH — Rochester girls basketball coach Joel Burrus wanted freshmen Hope Baugh and Lyla Bowers to work on shooting 3-point shots from the corner, and he had assistant coach Colt Meadows to work with them for 30 minutes during a pregame shootaround before the team traveled to Wabash for its Class 2A, Sectional 38 semifinal against Lewis Cass Friday.

The extra shooting work paid off for Baugh, who took a pass from Adalyn Gonzalez and swished a 3-pointer from the left corner with 0.4 seconds left in the second overtime to give Rochester a 38-36 win over the Lady Kings.

“You’re always striving for this week to be playing your best basketball of the season,” Burrus said. “We’ve gotten there. … I knew it was going to be an absolute war, and it took an extra eight minutes to figure it out.”

After Baugh made her shot, she ran to the other end of the court as teammate Jadyn Field smothered her in an embrace.

“I didn’t really know the time on the clock,” Baugh said. “I just knew that it seemed like I had to shoot it. There wasn’t much time on it. And earlier today, we were shooting around, and I told coach Meadows that something felt off about my shot, so he came in and helped me, and we shot a lot of corner 3s, and it definitely paid off.” 

But the game was not over. Lewis Cass called one timeout and then another.

Ava Hubner inbounded to Aftin Griffin just in front of midcourt, but she could not get off a shot before the final buzzer – which Field blocked anyway – as the Lady Zs celebrated another impossibly tense instant classic: Rochester was coming off a one-point win against Manchester Tuesday.

Rochester improved to 13-11 and earned a date with No. 12 Oak Hill in the final at 7:30 p.m. tonight. Oak Hill handled Wabash 70-43 in Friday’s other semifinal.

Lewis Cass finished 20-4. They had won their final eight regular season games before receiving a bye to start the sectional. They also had their six-game sectional winning streak snapped, losing their first sectional game since 2023.

Aubrey Wilson led Rochester with 14 points, and Jadyn Field had 10. Baugh’s trey accounted for her only points of the game.

Griffin hit five 3-pointers and led Lewis Cass with 15 points. Presley Johnson added 14, and Anna Hedrick had seven.

A miscommunication led to a nearly devastating mistake for the Lady Zs with 27.5 seconds left in the second overtime. Wilson heard Burrus yell the word “foul” from the bench with the game tied 35-35 and Lewis Cass playing catch on the perimeter and using clock.

So Wilson fouled Hedrick on a reach-in.

In fact, Burrus yelled, “Don’t foul,” as Lewis Cass was in the bonus.

Hedrick made the first free throw but missed the second.

Burrus was sympathetic towards Wilson afterwards, saying she “played a great game” and “we expect so much out of her.”

“It’s louder than heck,” Burrus later said. “She felt terrible.”

Rochester advanced the ball past halfcourt and called timeout with 21.2 seconds left.

Wilson, Brailyn Hunter and Gonzalez played catch on the outer perimeter before Wilson cut in from the left side and took a pass from Hunter on the right wing. Kylie Logan fouled Wilson, but Rochester was not in the bonus.

There were 6.9 seconds left.

Baugh was the inbounds passer. Gonzalez set a cross screen to get Wilson open at the right wing. Gonzalez then popped back open on the left wing. Wilson passed it to Gonzalez, who dribbled to her left. Meanwhile, Baugh slipped behind the back row of Lewis Cass’ 2-3 defense after making the inbounds pass.

Gonzalez’s pass found her just as she set her feet. The shot went right through the heart of the net. 

“I just had a hunch in that timeout to put Hope down in that corner and stretch her out to that corner,” Burrus said. “Before the game, I told her and Bowers when we were at the school getting shots, you guys need to work in the corners because we’re going to stretch you guys out to the corners if we go to our smaller lineup. Right there, I said, ‘You know what? Even though we’re bringing her in, she’s the last person that they’re probably worried about.”

In fact, Burrus had Lewis Cass coach Kyle Amor’s thoughts pegged exactly.

“She’s probably the last person you would have thought that was going to win the game for them if we were going to leave one kid open, I suppose,” Amor said. “But hey, that’s a gutsy shot for them. We were so concerned about Hunter getting the ball or Wilson or, honestly, I thought they were going to go try to get a dump-down to Field to either win the thing from the free throw line or a layup, so that one caught us off-guard for sure.”

Rochester needed Wilson’s heroics to rally from a five-point deficit in the first overtime. Down 35-30, Logan fouled Ali Field with 1:53 left. She made the first free throw but missed the second. After a scramble on the floor for the loose ball, officials ruled a held ball. The possession arrow pointed to Rochester.

Wilson followed a stagger screen trail set that Gonzalez and then Jadyn Field set for her and put in a running banker.

Lewis Cass’ Paula Pons traveled with 1:16 left.

Hunter found a cutting Wilson with 1:09 left, and Ava Hubner fouled her. Wilson sunk two free throws to tie it at 35.

Johnson attempted a 3 from the right corner but missed, and Jadyn Field rebounded with 33 seconds left. Rochester called a timeout with 29.1 seconds left and another with 9.1 seconds left. Wilson threw up an air ball that fell out of bounds with 0.3 seconds left.

Johnson caught an inbounds pass from Hubner and banked in a 50-footer, but the shot was disallowed per NFHS Rule 5-2-5, which disallows a player to catch and shoot the ball with 0.3 seconds left or less in a period.

It was onto the second overtime.

Rochester went on a 9-0 run covering the third and fourth quarters to wipe out a 25-16 deficit. Wilson scored the first five points in the run and Jadyn Field the last four.

Johnson’s 3-pointer gave Lewis Cass the lead back, but Hunter answered with a 3 from the left wing after Griffin collapsed on Gonzalez at the left elbow. Gonzalez sent it back to the wing, and Hunter made what turned out to be her only field goal.

Jadyn Field’s air ball putback after a shot well short of the rim from Hunter gave Rochester a 30-28 lead. Griffin missed a 3, but the ball went out of bounds off Hunter.

Johnson would eventually tie it on a 12-footer in the lane on Lewis Cass’ third shot of the possession. 

A bad pass from Wilson to Hunter that rolled out of bounds was answered with a Hubner miss. The ball was knocked out of bounds with 8.9 seconds left. The baseline official ruled that Jadyn Field touched it last. After consulting with another official, she changed the possession to Rochester.

Rochester would call a timeout with 6.1 seconds left, but Wilson missed a 22-footer for the win, and the game was headed for overtime.

“I can’t say enough about the fight that these guys had,” Burrus said, his voice overused and scratchy. “You’re going to double overtime with Cass, and they are so seasoned, so veteran, 20 wins. They are a load to deal with, and we just said we ain’t getting beat. I think that says a lot about the buy-in these kids have had and how much better we’ve gotten.”

Rochester trailed 10-7 after one quarter as Griffin, who passed the 1,000-point milestone earlier this season, hit two 3-pointers. But the Lady Zs held Lewis Cass scoreless in the second quarter and took an 11-10 lead at halftime on buckets from Ali Field and then Jadyn Field.

The rock fight was on, and a legendary hero awaited.

“It feels good,” Baugh said. “I really wanted to do that for my team because they mean a lot to me, and they deserve that win too.”

Semifinal: Rochester 38, Lewis Cass 36 (2 OT)

LEWIS CASS (36) (20-4)

Anna Hedrick 3 1-2 7, Aftin Griffin 5 0-0 15, Ava Hubner 0 0-0 0, Kylie Logan 0 0-0 0, Presley Johnson 5 2-2 14, Marina Melian 0 0-0 0, Laney Davis 0 0-0 0, Hope Rush 0 0-0 0, Paula Pons 0 0-0 0

TEAM: 13 3-6 36

ROCHESTER (38) (13-11)

Aubrey Wilson 4 5-6 14, Brailyn Hunter 1 1-2 4, Adalyn Gonzalez 0 0-0 0, Jadyn Field 4 2-5 10, Ali Field 3 1-2 7, Hope Baugh 1 0-0 3

TEAM: 13 9-15 38

Three-point field goals:

Lewis Cass 7 (Griffin 5, Johnson 2),

Rochester 3 (Wilson, Hunter, Baugh)

Total fouls: Lewis Cass 13, Rochester 10

Turnovers: Lewis Cass 15, Rochester 17

Score by quarters

Lewis Cass 10 0 15 5 5 1 – 36

Rochester 7 4 10 9 5 3 – 38

Oak Hill 70, Wabash 43

Brianna Dailey scored 14 of her 29 points in the second quarter, and Kora Pond added 14 as the No. 12 Lady Golden Eagles defeated Wabash 70-43 in a Class 2A, Sectional 38 semifinal at Wabash Friday.

Oak Hill improved to 20-3. Wabash finished 4-20.

Dailey, a 6-1 sophomore post player, went on a personal 10-0 run in the second quarter after the upstart Lady Apaches – they lost to Oak Hill 63-15 in their regular season meeting Dec. 17 – took a 17-16 lead on a Haylee Friend 3-pointer with 6:14 left in the half.

Dailey had back-to-back 3-point plays, then hit two free throws and then scored again in the post.

Dailey would score twice more in the post as Oak Hill stretched the lead to 36-22 at halftime.

Oak Hill then opened the second half on a 12-3 run. Erika Newhouse hit a 19-footer and then scored in transition to start the run, and Dailey tallied nine more points against the outsized Lady Apaches.

Oak Hill led by as many as 30 in the fourth quarter.

Bryleigh Boggs scored 31 points to lead Wabash in her final prep game. Boggs hit a pair of 3-pointers and also made 15 of 23 free throws.

Wabash coach Joe Kaufman had one of Boggs’ teammates commit a foul with 30.8 seconds, so he could take her out to an ovation from the home fans.

The teams combined for 51 fouls and 55 free throw attempts.

Oak Hill will play Rochester in the sectional final at 7:30 p.m. today. Oak Hill beat Rochester 39-21 in last year’s sectional semifinal.

Rochester beat Oak Hill 48-38 in 2016 the last time they met in a sectional final.

Semifinal: Oak Hill 70, Wabash 43

OAK HILL (70) (20-3)

Erika Newhouse 2 3-6 7, Landri Hardman 2 1-1 5, Kora Pond 4 4-6 14, Morgan Cates 1 2-6 4, Brianna Dailey 11 7-7 29, Marisela Sherron 0 0-0 0, Hadleigh Bricker 0 0-0 0, Lilly Edwards 1 0-0 3, Ryleigh Myers 2 2-4 6, Esther Biggs 1 0-0 2

TEAM: 24 19-30 70

WABASH (43) (4-20)

Pasyn Schuler 0 0-0 0, Haylee Friend 1 2-2 5, Bryleigh Boggs 7 15-23 31, Elli Hall 1 0-0 2, Logan Wright 0 0-0 0, Avi Osborne 1 0-0 2, Jaycee Jones 0 0-0 0, Rya Morgan 1 0-0 3, Quinn Myers 0 0-0 0, Kendalyn Lochner 0 0-0 0

TEAM: 11 17-25 43

Three-point field goals:

Oak Hill 3 (Pond 2, Edwards),

Wabash 4 (Boggs 2, Friend, Morgan)

Total fouls: Oak Hill 24, Wabash 27

Fouled out: Q. Myers (WAB), 1:11, third; Schuler (WAB), 1:02, fourth

Turnovers: Oak Hill 10, Wabash 20

Score by quarters

Oak Hill 15 21 20 14 – 70

Wabash 8 14 9 12 – 43