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J-Milton outlasts Dalton in tight duel
Bluejays advance to play in their first regional final
MASSILLON
The Jackson-Milton girls basketball team went to bed Thursday night thanking their lucky stars after a few scary final minutes in its Division IV regional semifinal against Dalton at Massillon Perry High School.
“I watched three films of them, they’re up in your face and they play good defense like we do,” Bluejays coach Pat Keney said. “It was a matter of who was lucky at the end of the game.”
Jackson-Milton (23-3) was the team who ended up lucky, prevailing 44-40 to advance to Saturday’s regional final against Hiland.
The Blue Jays had a 44-36 lead with less than 2:30 remaining, but gave Dalton plenty of opportunities to turn the tables.
The Bulldogs lowered the deficit to 44-38 on a pull-up jumper from freshman Makenna Geiser.
With a little more than a minute to go, the Bluejays started to break down. Jackson-Milton was called for over-and-back and gave Dalton a chance to cut the deficit.
The Bulldogs couldn’t convert, but did get another chance after the Bluejays were called for traveling.
Again, Jackson-Milton lucked out as Dalton failed to produce a bucket and it was the Bluejays’ ball with 46.2 seconds remaining.
Ashley Totani was fouled and sent to the line for a one-and-one. She missed the first foul shot and Dalton received yet another chance to score with 37 seconds on the clock.
The Bulldogs’ shot bounced off the rim and both teams scrambled for the rebound, resulting in a jump ball.
The possession arrow favored Jackson-Milton with 21.2 seconds.
Just when you thought the Bluejays sealed the deal, they turned the ball over again to give Dalton their fourth chance in less than a minute.
But the Bulldogs again couldn’t capitalize.
Despite almost blowing an eight-point lead, Totani had faith in her team.
“I knew our team has that fight mentality and I knew we were going to get it done,” said the senior.
Her coach, on the other hand, was just a bit nervous.
“I was praying,” Keney said.
The Bulldogs (20-6) took away what Jackson-Milton does best — shooting from behind the arc.
“We’re more balanced,” Keney said. “We have the same four scoring all the time, so when people play us they think they’re going to shut one girl down, but we have four girls that score.
“We’re very fortunate to have that,” Keney said.
Dalton’s zone defense allowed for the Blue Jays to work the ball around and rely on Michaelina Terranova and Abigail Spalding to do work down low.
“I just want to make it special for the seniors this year. I’ve been playing with them for a long time now and I just want to let them out with a win,” Terranova said.
The junior led Jackson-Milton with 14 points and Spalding scored eight.
“It was really important to get them the ball. They definitely stepped up,” Totani said.
Jackson-Milton played in the regional semifinal last season, but fell to Cornerstone Christian.
“Every year we try to push to the next level,” Totani said. “Winning this game meant everything, especially being a senior. Our team has worked so hard for this. I’m so proud of them.”.
Jackson-Milton advances to the regional final for the first time in school history.
“I’ve been coaching for 27 years,” Keney said. “It’s awesome. We’ve been to districts and we just ran up against people that were better than we were. But this is a blast.”
The Bluejays will need to take care of the ball more if they want a shot at beating the No. 1-ranked team in the state.
“They’re tough,” Keney said. “They have a bench. I mean, they have everything. So, we just have to come and play as hard as we can play and see what happens.”
“We’re going to play like we usually do, play all four quarters, fight and see what happens,” Totani said.