The Wellsville-Middletown girls basketball team had a shot to win its first district title since the George H.W. Bush administration on Feb. 25.

All W-M had to do was beat the Pilot Grove Tigers in the Class 1, District 10 championship game at Pilot Grove High School.

But from the opening tipoff, Pilot Grove was too much to handle for W-M.

W-M fell short of its first district championship since 1990 with a 59-31 loss to Pilot Grove. It ended its season at 11-14, almost tripling its win total of four from a year ago.

“We got beat by a better team,” W-M coach Todd Cripe said. “That’s a really good ballclub. They do a lot of things really well that we struggle with. They’ve got a lot of team speed. We have a little bit of speed, but not that much. They do a great job of transition. We struggled with transition defense a little bit. They took advantage of that.”

W-M, the No. 4 seed in the seven-team district tournament, came into the championship game with huge momentum after upsetting top-seeded Higbee 51-49 in the semifinals three days before. It was the first time the Tigers advanced to the district finals since 2001.

“We were excited,” W-M junior Natalie Boeckelman said. “We were happy about that. It did a lot to boost our confidence.”
But Pilot Grove, the No. 2 seed, made sure W-M wasn’t going to pull off another upset, storming to a 30-5 halftime lead. The Cooper County school held W-M to one field goal and three free throws in the first half.

Cripe said the players showed signs of jitters since they never played in a district championship game before.

“They came out a little tight,” the W-M coach said. “If you come out tight against Pilot Grove, they’re going to jump out to a 21-2 lead, which is what happened. It is what it is. But I told the girls that it was a good experience for them.”

Pilot Grove won its sixth district title and its first since 2019. After the game, the Pilot Grove players cut down the nets at a practice gym.

Coach Grant Fricke said the championship was special for seniors Grace Phillips, Leah Vollrath and Natalie Glenn.

“These seniors were freshmen the last time they won,” Fricke said. “They had the experience and knew what the atmosphere was going to be like and they really wanted it.”

Dani Hager, the only senior on the W-M roster, played her last high school basketball game. After the contest, she received the second-place district trophy.

“We’re going to miss Dani Hager a lot,” Cripe said. “Her smile is one reason. She is a firecracker. She comes in and works hard every day in practice. She does exactly what I ask her to do. She’s the consummate senior. She accepted a role on the team because her role changed a little bit from the last two years. She accepted it. She was an awesome teammate.”

Cripe said Hager played a valuable role in W-M’s win over Higbee.

“Dani Hager came in and gave us some awesome minutes at the end of the game,” Cripe said. “She also forced a loose ball at the end of game on the last possession that really kind of threw out of whack of what Higbee coach (Tanner) Burton wanted to do at the end of the game. We preserved the win.”

W-M began its district tournament play on Feb. 19 with a 55-36 win over fifth-seeded Bunceton, its first postseason win since 2018.

Freshman Hallie Guzy was W-M’s top scorer in the district tournament, scoring 49 points in three games. Against Pilot Grove, she led W-M with 12 points, including 11 in the third quarter.

Another W-M freshman, Keigan Hall, scored 29 points in three games, including 11 against Bunceton.

Emma Sleeper scored 19 points with three 3-pointers to lead Pilot Grove against W-M.