C3D2: Kelly, Woodland advance to C3D2 championship

The Class 3 District 2 championship game in Kelly High School will be a classic battle between an emerging dynasty and the hosting team of destiny.

Kelly, led by a 25-year-old rookie head coach, shocked Scott City 50-47 to advance to the title game on their home court on Thursday. The Hawks will have a chance to claim the first district title since 2007.

“It means a lot,” Kelly head coach Matthew Blissett said. “These girls have been through a lot. I'm the third coach in three years so it's hard for them to find a system to work with but I think it means the world to them because this was our goal from the first day I got here. I want to take you guys to the district, I want to win it and show them that we can really be a force to reckon with.”

The Hawks were trailing the Rams 29-18 coming out of halftime. Jada Griggs led the Hawks by scoring seven of her 14 points in the third quarter to tie the game 36-36 entering the fourth quarter.

The fourth quarter was Brooke Dirnberger’s time to shine. The junior scored 11 points on three shots from the three-point line to push the Hawks to victory.

“She just goes out there and plays,” Blissett said. “Sometimes she just seems like she's in another world. I’d be screaming at her and she's just focused on just basketball in general. So it's good to have a player like that. She goes out there and does what needs to be done. So I'm really proud of her.”

Blissett arrived at Kelly from Scott County Central, where he was an assistant coach.

“They're known for athletes. The girls' programs here are great,” he said. “So coming in, I knew that I had something to work with and just gotta be guided in the right direction, get them to buy in. It's hard to build a program within a year but they're working hard. So they're making it easy for me.”

Kelly enters the championship game even at 14-14. A win on Saturday will not only mean a trip back to the tournament but going in with a winning record. The Hawks will play a Woodland team that is looking to win its third consecutive district title.

The Cardinals extended their winning streak to five games with a 53-44 win over Chaffee in the semifinal round. The Cardinals made 22-of-27 free throws to seal the win.

“We shot free throws extremely well tonight," Woodland head coach Paul Lynch said, "and that was really the difference.”

After a sluggish 10-9 first quarter in favor of Woodland, Tallie Johnson made three baskets from the three-point line in the second quarter to give the Cardinals a 30-23 halftime lead. She finished with 13 points.

"She's got the ability to step out and shoot a three, and she's been working hard on it," Lynch said. "She also works hard on the inside for us, so it was really nice for her to step up and have a big game. I'll take it again on Saturday."

Senior Caroline Rhodes led the Cardinals with 15 points and a perfect 9-of-9 from the charity stripe. After starting the season 2-9, it was starting to look like the beginning of a rebuild. It wasn't until the BCS Tournament that the Cardinals started to turn their season around.

"We're now 10-6 since Christmas," Lynch said. "So girls started to feel comfortable in their roles. Our seniors, Sarah Wilkinson and Caroline Rhodes stepped up and showed tremendous leadership, and our younger girls really stepped their game up. We just continue to slowly make progress and I felt at the beginning of the year that we had an outside chance to be here."

It may be the rare occurrence of the team of dynasty feeling like the team of destiny at the same time.

"We've been kind of carrying the chip on our shoulder because we did lose a lot from last year and this group wanted to prove that they were a good team," Lynch said. We are where we hope to be, and now we're just going to enjoy this."

Tip-off for the district title game is 3:00 pm on Saturday.

__From bye-week to bye-bye__

Scott City (16-10) and Chaffee (17-10) received bye weeks in the district tournament, but both were eliminated in their first games.

Scott City senior Liza Dannenmueller led the Rams with 12 points in her final career game. MacKenzie Lawless scored 10 points on all free throws. Emma Moore, Ramsey Spinks, and Gracie Karrenbrock each scored eight points, and Makenna Gentry rounded out the scoring with a single free throw in the second quarter.

Chaffee was led by Ayne' Held's 14 points, followed by nine points from Hailey Rains, eight points from Malinah Robertson, seven points from Rayney Held, and six points from Zoe Bentley.