Lapel falls to the undefeated

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ALEXANDRIA —The Lapel Bulldogs fell short of their quest for a sectional title, but they made Monroe Central understand they were going to have to fight for it. The Golden Bears defeated the Dogs 54-41 Saturday in the Sectional 40 championship at Alexandria.

Monroe Central (24-0) came into the game ranked No. 1 in Class 2A. The Bulldogs came in at 13-11 but were 6-1 in their previous seven games.

In the first quarter, Lapel even found themselves up by one, 8-7, before the Golden Bears ended the quarter up 9-8. However in the second quarter, Monroe Central began to unravel the Bulldogs’ momentum, going on an 11-3 run halfway through the period. They used patience on offense and aggression on the boards to boost their lead to 20-11.

Lapel firedback to come within six with seconds to go in the half, but Golden Bear Luke Jones sank a 3 at the buzzer, giving Lapel a bigger hole to dig out of in the second half.

“In the second quarter, they jumped on us a little bit. I thought if we could get to halftime down six, I’d be really happy,” coach Tod Windlan said. “A kid (Jones) hit a three from the corner. Now we’re down nine.”

Most of the rest of the game, Monroe Central was able to maintain a double digit lead, but the Bulldogs refused to concede and worked their way to within seven or eight points several times in the second half.

“We came back and chipped at it a little bit back. I told our kids in the fourth quarter we had to be very aggressive, and I thought we were,” Windlan said.

The boards proved to be a key problem for Lapel.

The Golden Bears out-rebounded the Dogs 22-14. Lapel was without their leading rebounder Corbin Renihan, who was sidelined with a foot problem.

Not one of the Bulldogs had experienced a sectional final game before and several — including freshmen Brode and Bode Judge, Rylie Hudson and sophomores Matt Carpenter and Nick Witte —had no post-season experience, but all played in Saturday’s final.

Windlan said he was proud of his team for never giving up one minute of intensity.

Landon Bair topped Bulldog scorers with 18.

“Bair played another tremendous game for us,” Windlan said. “I though Landis and Stow gave us everything. Griffen (Craig) came in played hard. It was one of those things where not one of those kids in the locker room had ever been in that environment.”

Lapel played its way to the finals by first defeating Alexandria-Monroe in the opening round 53-31.

In the semifinals, the Bulldogs faced Winchester Community in a physicality match up that saw bodies hitting the floor throughout the game. Lapel emerged with a 45-41 win to advance to the final game. Chase Landis hit a 3 at the buzzer to give Lapel a 14-9 lead at the end of the first quarter. By the end of the first half, Lapel led 22-15.

In the second half, Winchester rallied to close the gap to 26-24 at the close of the third period, before Tyler Dollar hit two at the buzzer to give Lapel a 28-24 lead. In the final period, the Falcons tied the game at 39 with a little more than two minutes to play in the game.

Bair, who went 6-6 for from the line in the fourth quarter, was able to seal the win. Bair led the Bulldogs with 15 points, and Brennan Stow had 10.

Saturday’s loss was the end for Lapel’s seniors but signaled a bright future for the program, according to Windlan. The Judges, Witte and Carpenter saw substantial playing time during the season and were often starters.

“To win two sectional games and play for a sectional championship will really help propel our program,” Windlan said. “Tonight was a raucous environment. So that’s only going to prepare us next year and get us ready to play in the post-season. The seniors were good mentors to them in this tournament run.”

The Bulldogs were 7-10 at one point in the season, and Windlan said he was very proud of how his team turned their things around.

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