FCW starts fast, hangs on to claim 1A regional title

HEYWORTH — The Flanagan-Cornell/Woodland girls basketball team started Thursday’s Class 1A Heyworth Regional championship hotter than a firecracker against the host Hornets.

The No. 8-seeded Falcons (12-20), who led for all but 40 seconds in the contest, then held off multiple rallies from the No. 4-seeded Hornets to eventually secure a 47-43 victory and first postseason hardware since the 2008 team captured the 1A state title.

“This is crazy,” said the team’s lone senior, guard Ella Derossett, who scored 22 points, 11 in each half, grabbed six rebounds and swiped five steals. “All I kept thinking about all game was that I just didn’t want to lose, not this game. We came into tonight, really the postseason, with nothing to lose. We were the underdogs, but we all knew we could win the championship if we played like we can.”

FCW advances to Tuesday’s 6 p.m. Midland Sectional against top-seeded Cissna Park, which defeated host Dwight 48-18.

“I’m not going to lie, I was a little nervous when (Heyworth) started catching up, but it just seemed like anytime they got really close we were able to find a way to make another basket,” Derossett said. “Everyone stepped up and made plays when we needed to. This is great.”

The Falcons jumped out to a 24-13 first quarter lead with sophomore Emma Palaschak (10 points, three rebounds, three steals) swishing a trio of 3s, Derossett a pair of triples and a drive and 10-foot jumper by junior Kora Edens. FCW hit 8 of 12 shots in the quarter, including 5 of 7 from the arc against Heyworth’s 2-1-2 zone.

“We were the underdog,“ said Edens, who finished with a game-high 11 rebounds. ”Our record this season isn’t the greatest, but the talk between us was the record doesn’t matter right now. All that matters is playing as hard as we can and to do the things we need to do to be successful.

“When we played them earlier this season (a 61-38 loss on Jan. 30) it was bad. We didn’t play well at all. Then tonight after the first quarter I looked at the scoreboard and we were up 24-13 and I was like ‘Is that right?’ But yeah, we came out right away with a lot of energy and had just enough left in the end.”

Heyworth (14-17) used a 9-0 to close out the first half to cut the deficit to 29-22 and crawled closer at 36-33 heading to the fourth.

On three seperate occasions in the final eight minutes the FCW lead was shrunk to one point, but each time the Falcons scored to maintain the lead.

“When we played them in the regular season, they zoned us, and we didn’t handle it very well at all,” FCW coach Danielle Pollitt said. “The last two days of practice was working against that zone, setting screens and working to get the ball where we knew the open spots would be. The first quarter we did everything we worked on.

“We’ve started most of our games this season slow, but the game the other night against LeRoy and tonight we just came out strong and set the tone. After the first when they went to man, we struggled a little. But I just kept telling them, we just have to keep playing hard and that this was their game to win.”

Heyworth was led by senior Kyra Denning’s game-high 25 points, eight rebounds and four blocks. FCW also received eight points and five rebounds from Aubry Edens

“(FCW) came out and were just lethal,” Heyworth coach Ryan Lawler said. “They were hitting 3s from all over the place. We knew (Derossett) and (Palaschak) were good shooters and we thought we could still find them with our zone, but we just didn’t.

“Shout out to FCW, they were really good tonight. They played hard and were able to take every punch we had down the stretch to hold on to the lead. We just dug too deep of hole for ourselves tonight in that first quarter.”