Oregon 33, Hampshire 26
Oregon succeeded in slowing Hampshire down. Controlling the tempo from the start, the Hawks upended the Whip-Purs 33-26 to win the Class 2A Hampshire girls basketball regional Friday night in the final girls game at the Purple Palace.
An 8-0 fourth-quarter run put Oregon ahead to stay and the Hawks put the game away from the free throw line.
Oregon's tough, physical defense forced the Whips away from the basket.
"I thought we were making a good run at them," said Hampshire coach Sue Ellett. "Maybe we just ran out of gas a little bit. We were living too far from the basket tonight. We needed to move a little closer."
Chrissy Heine led Hampshire with 7 points and 6 rebounds. Alex Dumoulin and Cassie Dumoulin added 6 points apiece for the Whips.
Hampshire had used runs of 7-0 and 6-0 to take a third-quarter lead, but couldn't sustain the momentum.
"We were getting overexcited and started rushing our shots, and we really couldn't put them in," said Heine.
The pace of the game was evidenced by the 13-10 halftime score, but the Whips weren't really bothered by the slow pace.
"We see that a lot," said Whips' senior Mallory Koster, who finished with 5 points and 5 rebounds.
After halftime, Hampshire turned to full-court pressure to speed up the tempo. The result was 8 Oregon turnovers and a 12-6 Hampshire advantage in the third period. But once the Hawks were able to settle down and handle the pressure, they quickly regained the momentum.
"We just needed to take care of the basketball," said Oregon coach Pat Donahue. "Just break the press, get the ball down, get back into the set, and do the things we told them to do."
Oregon (22-9), which got 11 points from Carissa Oelke and 8 from Lauren Fane, won its first regional title since 2000 and will play either Sterling Newman or Amboy Monday night in the Oregon sectional.
Oregon trailed only once in the first half, at 5-4, but could never led by more than 6 points.
After Oelke gave Oregon a 15-10 lead to start the second half, the Whips started their first run. Cassie Dumoulin scored in the lane. Heine made a steal and fed Kelly Plichta for a breakaway. After a Heine free throw tied the game, Alex Dumoulin made a steal and a pull-up jumper to put the Whips ahead.
Hampshire held a 25-17 rebounding advantage and forced 17 Oregon turnovers, but the Whips (19-8), who won 12 of their last 14 games, just couldn't make enough shots. They made just 10 of 39, and although Oregon didn't exactly shoot lights out, the Whips just couldn't keep pace.
"You can never be happy when you lose," said Ellett. "Hopefully we'll learn from it. We came together nicely as a team. We won together and we lost together. There was no selfishness or any of that. Everybody's going to take some blame and everybody's going to get some credit, too."
It was a disappointing finish to the Whip-Purs' final game at the Purple Palace.
"We wanted to win this game in the worst way," said Heine. "Even though it was our last game in our old gym, it didn't feel like it. We'll just have to make more memories in our new gym."