Strong start, solid finish completes Cinderella story for No. 7 Pavilion, wedging past top-seeded Fillmore with 50-37 victory to claim Class D1 title

Fillmore senior Hannah Roeske, off-center, launches a three-point shot against a pair of Pavilion defenders during Friday night’s Class D1 Finals contest at Letchworth. [Chris Brooks/WellsvilleSports.com]

Fillmore senior Erin Mawn (21) dishes out a pass to the inside of the paint against the Pavilion defense during Friday night’s Class D1 Finals contest at Letchworth. [Chris Brooks/WellsvilleSports.com]

Fillmore sophomore Emma Cole, right, picks up the loose rebound against a pair of Pavilion defenders inside the paint during Friday night’s Class D1 Finals contest at Letchworth. [Chris Brooks/WellsvilleSports.com]

Fillmore senior Carlee Miller (22) drives her way to the basket against the Pavilion defense during Friday night’s Class D1 Finals contest at Letchworth. [Chris Brooks/WellsvilleSports.com]

Fillmore senior Riley Voss (3) brings the ball up the court while the Pavilion defense races alongside to defend during Friday night’s Class D1 Finals contest at Letchworth. [Chris Brooks/WellsvilleSports.com]

GAINESVILLE — In the classic fairytale Cinderella, the search for the perfect fit inside the glass slipper began for No. 7 Pavilion, who once not too long ago, already played the role as Cinderella in the 2017 Class D1 tournament, where along the way, knocked off Fillmore in a 27-25 defensive battle for the ages in the Semifinal round.

They were ultimately stopped in the Finals by eventual champion Wheatland-Chili, which saw the Lady Golden Gophers carriage morph back into a pumpkin before its departure from the ball.

Three years later, they had a chance to do it all over again in this year’s Class D1 Finals against the defending champion Lady Eagles in their first meeting since the 2017 Semifinals, in front of a packed audience at Letchworth on a cold, snowy Friday night.

For any victory, there are many ingredients a team needs to succeed, especially at this stage. Strong offense, strong defense, strong special teams, capitalization on the smallest of details. To capture a championship, you would have to play close-to-perfect basketball.

The Lady Golden Gophers hit the nail on the head with pretty much everything on the checklist, making sure they had the perfect fit inside the Class D1 slipper this time around, as they used an even balance in all phases of the game to establish a strong 1st quarter start to put toward a solid final eight minutes of play to capture the championship with a 50-37 victory over the Lady Eagles.

“Their defense, with their length while playing a zone defense like that, they can cover a lot of ground,” Lady Eagles coach Tom Parks said. “The girls wanted to keep trying to dig inside, and we weren’t necessarily trying to get into a shootout with them. Their size definitely neutralized some of the things we wanted to do inside in the first place. Sectional Finals, and we knew it was going to be tough and it wasn’t going to be easy. We had to keep grinding and get into a rhythm, take a brief lead, and so on. It was a great ball game, but hats off to Pavilion.”

The early game haymaker came in the first eight minutes of play, when Pavilion became rampant on the floor, launching one shot after another until they couldn’t miss, as they accounted for a big 12-2 run of Fillmore which saw 10 of those points come in a consecutive fashion. After a timeout was called by the Lady Eagles, Hannah Roeske saw the scoreless drought come to an end with an inside runner with under two minutes left to play, helping jumpstart what was a 5-0 quarter-ending run of the Lady Golden Gophers.

That run carried over into the second, when Roeske launched her lone three-ball from downtown to tie the game up at 12 from just outside the left wing, continuing a-now 12-0 run Lady Eagles run of their own in just four minutes time. But it turned into a back-and-forth affair all the way up until the break, with Abby Hatch and Carlee Miller each launching three-pointers of their own to keep within reach of Pavilion, but the Lady Golden Gophers would wind up with the four-point, 24-20 lead at the half.

“They came out on fire, and they played really well on the big stage,” Parks said. “But I have to give my girls credit, we got punched in the mouth being down 12-2 early in the first quarter. We came right to take the lead in the second quarter. We fought all game long, and certainly, Pavilion had a start that made it tough for us to deal with.”

The third quarter turned out be a quarter the Lady Eagles would find a way to win from Pavilion, as they battled their way from being down five in the early stages of the frame with assistance from Erin Mawn and the team’s final three-pointer to tie the game up at 28 with nearly three minutes left in the quarter. But it was for a moment, as Pavilion took the lead back on the very next possession down the court.

They would remain in the lead, but it would only be by a point, after a 12-9 outscoring by Fillmore was finished by an Emma Cole inside bucket and Hannah Roeske fouled runner to cut the lead to 33-32.

“We had a great third quarter,” said Parks. “We came out, and it felt similar to our semifinal game with Notre Dame earlier in the week. It was back and forth, and we ended up winning the quarter over them. We trailed by one going into the fourth, and we ended up taking the lead at one point briefly. It was some very good basketball being put on display. We played hard, we played our style, we tried to make adjustments, but Pavilion just played better than we did.”

And in that final eight minute period, it was a two-minute timespan that saw the Lady Eagles take the lead for a short amount of time with Carlee Miller garnering a runner to the basket to pick up the 35-34 lead. But the Lady Golden Gophers defense would lock down Fillmore for the remainder of the game, stretching their lead back out to eight past the midway point, and ultimately, to double digits when the game ended, as they collected a game-winning 17-5 run to pair with key free shots down the stretch to pull away from Fillmore, and toward a Class D1 championship.

“Once they extended it, they got out to six or seven with three minutes left in the game,” Parks said. “We knew that we had to answer with some big buckets, but we just couldn’t find them. We never really had an answer for the (Karlee) Zinkievich girl. She played really well and we had trouble trying to stay in front of her. I thought we did better in other areas of the floor, but they have a really well-composed team over in Pavilion. They deserved this.”

Miller led all scorers for the Lady Eagles of Fillmore with a team-high 13 points. Roeske followed behind with nine points of her own, while Riley Voss pitched in with five points.

At the end of the game, all-tournament selections were announced for Class D1 with Miller and Voss receiving the mentions for the Lady Eagles.

Parks talked with his team back in the locker room after the game, saying that his girls have nothing to be ashamed of, but some accomplishments that the team has had earlier in the season made the trip all worthwhile.

“I told the girls in the locker room that they didn’t have a ton to prove tonight,” he said. “We wanted to win this more than anything of course, but getting the top seed two years in a row, coming here to the Finals two years in a row, winning another County championship, was worth it. Getting here is tremendously hard, and it’s not just what happens in the playoffs. If you added up the time, the minutes, the hours that the girls have devoted to playing basketball, it’s insanely hard to get here. I’m proud of everything they’ve accomplished, and I’m sure there are some teams out there that would love a sniff of what this program has been able to do. We weren’t able to pull it out tonight, but we’re able to look back and be pretty happy with what we’ve done together.”

The season comes to a close for Parks and the Lady Eagles, as they finish up another dominant season on the hardwood with an overall record of 20-3 to go with another Allegany County Division I championship, back-to-back seasons with the No. 1 seed, and two straight landings in the Class D1 Finals.

But the team will miss some key components when next year comes around on the calendar, as Fillmore prepares to graduate six seniors at the end of the school year in Roeske, Miller, Voss, Mawn, Tayler Bedow and Abby Hatch. The emotions from beyond the wooden door leading into the Fillmore locker room ran high after their season came to an end, as Parks said that the end of the season will have a bit of a sting with the amount of seniors leaving the program, and even more so, his guidance for the first and final time in nearly a decade.

“This group, we’ve been together since they were all in fourth grade,” the longtime Fillmore coach said. “I’ve coached their Saturday basketball teams, I’ve coached their County travel team, they’ve played AAU. We’ve literally been together doing everything we could imagine for not just three or four years, but eight years. On top of that, they’re the most amazing kids, the best students, the kindest girls, the hardest workers that give absolutely everything. It was emotional in the locker room, but I’ll see them in school after the weekend. But to know that something is over after working so hard on it, really hurts.”

Parks added on his seniors, “I could give you pages on pages if I talked about each kid as a senior, because they all mean that much. Hannah has done nothing but work on her game ever since she was a little girl, and she winds up being a 1,000 point scorer for our program. She absolutely deserves everything she’s worked hard for, every little piece of praise. Carlee Miller is an absolute warrior. She has just risen to the occasion this year after splitting time last year. She became a stud, and how she moves on the court, gets the ball, it’s amazing. She’s one of the best in the entire Section to do it. Tayler had hip surgery, and she told her doctor that she was going to come back and play in the Semis on Tuesday. Abby Hatch had a meniscus injury, and she came back from that to play. Riley Voss changed positions for us, and was absolutely incredible. Erin Mawn is an such an unsung player that does many things well. She stacks some of the prettiest passes to help set up these plays.”

When it was all said and done, Parks said “It’s hard not to gush about every single one of them.”

Pavilion          12 12   9 17 – 50

Fillmore 7 13 12 5 – 37

PAVILION: Kodi Beehler 1 0-0 2, Karlee Zinkievich 6 6-6 20, Lauren Kingsley 3 4-4 10, Adeline Milligan 2 2-2 6, Lindsay Lowe 5 2-4 12. Totals: 17 14-16 50.
FILLMORE: Riley Voss 2 1-2 5, Abby Hatch 1 0-0 3, Hannah Roeske 3 2-8 9, Emma Cole 2 0-2 4, Erin Mawn 1 0-0 3, Carlee Miller 4 4-8 13. Totals: 13 7-20 37.
3-point goals: Pavilion 2 (Zinkievich), Fillmore 4 (Hatch, Roeske, Mawn, Miller).
Total Fouls: Pavilion 19, Fillmore 18. Fouled out: Voss (FIL).