Waterford State Champions

[Eaglepawpaw]

AGAIN!

[Steely Dan]

Great win for the Wildcats. Fort Laramie came as advertised, it was a heavy weight boxing match. So nice to have two girls state champions from SEO! Congratulations to Coach Close and the Wildcats!

[MTSWNGRVSG]

Congratulations Lady Wildcats!

[Schnellfritz]

Congratulations wildcat girls!

[Kmit]

Congratulations young ladies! I believed all year that you would win it all and you absolutely did.

[Eaglepawpaw]

Congratulations young ladies! I believed all year that you would win it all and you absolutely did.

Yeah it was comical when people were questioning the coaches and even at one point saying Athens had a better coach and there was a storm brewing within the Waterford program. Well we see how it all worked out.

[danicalifornia]

Congratulations young ladies! I believed all year that you would win it all and you absolutely did.

Yeah it was comical when people were questioning the coaches and even at one point saying Athens had a better coach and there was a storm brewing within the Waterford program. Well we see how it all worked out.

The storm that was brewing was towards a third state championship! Congrats on another fantastic season!

[SEOsportchamp23]

That game was by far the best game out of all the divisions that have played so far. Talk about a top tier battle.
Waterford led wire to wire. FL had a lot of good runs but never got into their rhythm.
Wagner played a great game. Smithberger was filling every stat box as usual. She had a banger 3 at the end of the 1st quarter that ignited the wildcats. Sury took off in the second half and played her usual self.
Waterford kept FL out of their game. They are a well disciplined team. Never strayed from their game plan and it could’ve gone either way. It was a game of runs. And Waterford can out in top.
It was great to watch. As a basketball fan it was one of the best games I’ve seen at that level. Congratulations Waterford. You came back. And you have won a championship again.

[Gator B Long]

Congratulations young ladies! I believed all year that you would win it all and you absolutely did.

Yeah it was comical when people were questioning the coaches and even at one point saying Athens had a better coach and there was a storm brewing within the Waterford program. Well we see how it all worked out.

….but Athens scored 100 pts in a game
Great win Waterford

[RBH23]

That game was by far the best game out of all the divisions that have played so far. Talk about a top tier battle.
Waterford led wire to wire. FL had a lot of good runs but never got into their rhythm.
Wagner played a great game. Smithberger was filling every stat box as usual. She had a banger 3 at the end of the 1st quarter that ignited the wildcats. Sury took off in the second half and played her usual self.
Waterford kept FL out of their game. They are a well disciplined team. Never strayed from their game plan and it could’ve gone either way. It was a game of runs. And Waterford can out in top.
It was great to watch. As a basketball fan it was one of the best games I’ve seen at that level. Congratulations Waterford. You came back. And you have won a championship again.

100%!!

Very well coached teams. The girls played very fundamental basketball on both O and D. Not the individual star power like we saw in other games, but both teams could really play. Extremely impressed!

Congrats to Waterford.

[VetteMan]

Congrats to the Lady Wildcats of Waterford on your State Championship.

[dboy]

This was a great game to watch and I am glad I changed my mind and went to it instead of watching it on TV. Seeing both crowds, the interactions on the court away from the camera and talking to people from both sides make the in-person viewing much better for me. Waterford and Fort Loramie are two elite teams and two elite programs. Say what you want about the offenses but the defense that these two teams play is exceptional. There was a lot of physicality in the game both in the post and on the perimeter. I think they let some things go but overall, I actually thought the officiating was fine and fair. Did they miss some things? Sure (still not certain that the three at the end of the 3rd was actually a 3). But you will have that in every game and I thought both teams showed what championship teams are like in that they played through it. Outside of a couple of instances on both sides, I don't recall any egregious signs of frustration or complaining by the players.

As for the offense, I thought it was pretty good actually. The defense was suffocating so for the score to be that high was actually surprising to me. I thought the first team to 30 would win. Both teams got contributions from their role players and big performances from their stars. Just what you would want from an instant classic.

Both teams seemed to come in with the plan to double the other team's top two players an see who's supporting cast could pull them through. It worked well for Waterford early but the two quick fouls on Pottmeyer threw a big wrench in Waterford's plans. I think she played less than two minutes in the first half and that created some fatigue for Waterford players because they did not sub the rest of the half. I thought the Wildcats would go a little deeper but they chose not to. But they were visibly tired at the half and I thought it may be a bad sign for the Wildcats in the second half. But the extra time at half and between quarters seemed to be just enough for them. I think a big key for them was the media timeouts which gave them an extra timeout every quarter. At the end of the game, I think both teams were out of timeouts and there were four additional timeouts for the media so I think Waterford relied on that in place of substitutions. As per the usual with this coaching staff, great game planning.

Avery Wagner and Kendall Surry were beasts as they should have been. What I thought was significant was Sury's defense on the Brandewie girl. Sury shut her down. And when it came to supporting casts Waterford has the Swiss Army Knife in Avery Smithberger. Once again she did a little bit of everything for the team and all together it was just enough. The fact that the three seniors called their shot at the end of last year and then carried it through is a great story. Well done by the Wildcats and Wildcat nation.

[trojandave]

Congratulations to the Waterford Wildcats on their state championship!!

[1987chieftains]

Congratulations Wildcats!

[skyvue]

Congrats to Waterford on another state title! Especially happy for the former Skyvue Hawk on the coaching staff.