Norwalk rallies for district championship

COLUMBUS GROVE — Norwalk didn't make a 3-point field goal all night. The Truckers had more turnovers than Elida through three quarters. Norwalk trailed by six points with just more than four minutes left in regulation. The Truckers needed a clutch bucket from senior Trinity Lazzara in the final 10 seconds of regulation. Through it all, Norwalk is still standing. The second-seeded Truckers controlled the final two minutes of overtime, defeating fourth-seeded Elida 51-43 in a Div. III district championship game at Columbus Grove High School on Saturday. "It means a lot to all of us, honestly," Lazzara said. "It's a big accomplishment after falling short of it last year. It's an amazing feeling, and it's really exciting." Norwalk improved to 19-6 and will face Toledo Notre Dame (14-10) in a regional semifinal at 8:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Elida Fieldhouse. "Every time we looked at the scoreboard, it felt like we were down by two or four points and could never quite close that gap," Truckers coach Kyle Brubaker said. "I always feel like in a tournament there's going to be one game where you show your tournament jitters. Usually, it's the first one. "For whatever reason, for us, we decided to do it in the district championship game. I hadn't really seen that up until this point." Emmie Leber scored the first two buckets of overtime for Norwalk, but the Bulldogs (14-10) answered. Emma Mitchell knocked down two free throws before tallying a three-point play. Elida used a timeout with 2:12 left, but Norwalk dominated the rest of the way. Lazzara scored out of the timeout and was fouled. She made the free throw for a 45-43 lead. The Truckers got a stop and used a timeout. Alyssa Gruhlke drew the foul and made both free throws to make it 47-43. Lazzara knocked down two pairs of free throws to finish off the game. Norwalk made 7 of 9 free throws in the final four minutes after making 8 of 14 in regulation. "It's not been one of our strengths, but we hit them at the right time," Brubaker said. "Luckily, Trinity and Emmie were taking a lot of those free throws, and they've been in big spots for us before." The Truckers needed some heroics in the final minute of regulation just to push the game into overtime. Down 36-34 after Peyton Burden scored for Elida, Leber drew a foul. Only a 52 percent free throw shooter this season, Leber calmly made both free throws. "We were down a couple points, and I knew I didn't want this to be our last game with the seniors," Leber said. "I wanted to take charge and get to the rack as much as I could." Shae Rager countered with a foul-line jumper for Elida with 30 seconds to play. Norwalk used a timeout with 14.7 seconds remaining. Out of the break, Gruhlke inbounded to Lazzara, who got into the middle of the lane. She turned, rose up, and hit the jumper to tie the game. "I have all my confidence through God, so I had a feeling it was going to go in," Lazzara said. "I was led to do that, and I'm very blessed to take the shot. Everybody else would want to take that shot, so I was thankful it was me." Elida got off a half-court 3-pointer at the buzzer, but it was off, sending the game to overtime. Brubaker said he had all the confidence in the world for Lazzara to hit the biggest shot of the season for Norwalk. "A lot of confidence because I don't think she had a great game today, and she'd probably tell you the same thing," he said. "We still went to her at the end. It's kind of funny because we've never run that play before. We've been working on end-of-game situations, and that's what came to my mind. Trinity hit the shot." Norwalk led 15-12 after one quarter but stumbled offensively in the middle two quarters. The Truckers scored just three points in the second quarter and trailed 19-18 at the break. Norwalk committed seven turnovers in the third quarter. Yet, the Truckers found themselves down just 25-24 after three quarters after keeping Elida off the board the final 5:14 of the quarter. In the fourth quarter, Mitchell hit a 3-pointer to give the Bulldogs a 31-25 lead with 4:58 to go. "Ahead of time, we didn't know a lot about them," said Brubaker of Elida. "We went full-on as soon as the Ashland game was over. We knew Mitchell was going to be a load to handle, and they had athletes that played really, really hard." Lazzara scored a team-high 19 points with four rebounds and five steals. Leber had 15 points, and Jo Jackson added 10 points, six blocks, and four rebounds. "When Emmie doesn't want to lose or doesn't want it to be over, she hits another gear," Brubaker said. "You can feel it. It's tangible. You can see it. Boy, did we need it." Norwalk won district titles in 2017 and 2023. "Third one in school history," Brubaker said. "Last year we got the first league title in school history. These girls want to leave their mark. This is a good way to do it." NORWALK (19-6) CJ Bennett 1-0—2, Alyssa Gruhlke 1-3—5, Emmie Leber 6-3—15, Trinity Lazzara 6-7—19, Jo Jackson 4 2—10. TOTALS 18-15—51. ELIDA (14-10) Lexie Good 1-0—2, Shae Rager 2-0—4, Claire Dingledine 3-3—11, Peyton Burden 2-0—5, Emma Mitchell 7-3—19, Makenna Wieging 1-0—2. TOTALS 16-6—43. Norwalk 15 3 6 14 13 — 51 Elida 12 7 6 13 5 — 43 Three-point FGs: (E) Dingledine 2, Mitchell 2, Burden.