NEW WASHINGTON (Crawford County Now) — Defense has been the calling card of the Buckeye Central Buckettes all season. So, it was no surprise Tuesday night when the Buckettes smothered Western Reserve.

BC held the Lady Roughriders to just eight of 43 shots from the floor and never permitted more than six points in a quarter in a 38-20 win in the Division VI sectional tournament.

With the win, BC advances to the sectional final and will play at Colonel Crawford (19-2) on Saturday at 2 p.m. Western Reserve finishes its season at 6-15.

Buckeye Central coach Phil Loy said that playing the Lady Eagles will be a challenge for his team. Crawford dropped Buckeye, 37-25, on Dec. 7 and won 57-24 on Jan. 14.

“We know what’s ahead of us; a team that beat us twice and, the second time, kicked our butts,” Loy said of the Lady Eagles. “We remember that, and we just have to get better though.”

While Loy felt that his team was a little sloppy against the Roughriders, he also thought that a win is a win.

“It’s basically a survive and advance,” Loy said. “And that’s kind of what we did tonight. It wasn’t, by any means, a great performance, but, defensively, our girls have been doing a pretty solid job. And we have all year.”

The Buckettes didn’t shoot the ball well, either, hitting just 11 of 42 shots, and, after a sluggish first half, BC came to life offensively in the second half, outscoring WR, 18-9, to get the win.

“Occasionally, we have woes on the offensive end, and that was not great tonight, but it was good enough,” Loy said. “If you win a tournament game by 18, regardless of who we’re playing, win’s a win and we’ll take it. But we have to definitely get better.”

The Buckettes never trailed in the game and got a pair of threes from Grace Collene and Jenna Cianflone to take an 8-6 lead after one.

BC kept the defense going in the second period as well, permitting the Roughriders to score just four points in the frame. Nevaeh Metzger hit a pair of threes in the frame and scored eight points as the Buckettes held a 20-11 lead at the half.

“I think the first quarter was kind of a slow start to where we were in la-la land,” Loy said. “We got to get out of that, because give credit to Western Reserve; they came out and they were aggressive, and they had some length to them and we struggled to rebound the ball. They kicked our butts offensively on the boards but we kind of adjusted and locked in there a little bit as the game wore on.”

Western Reserve coach Stoney Jarrett said that his team shoots a lot of threes in a game, but the ball wasn’t falling.

“We don’t have a post player that we can just get the ball to, so we try to rely a little bit on our defense,” Jarrett said. “Their point guard is a really nice player, and she doesn’t turn the ball over a lot, so we didn’t get a chance to get out in transition tonight and that really slowed our offense down.”

BC held a 27-16 lead after three periods and finally put the game away in the fourth period, getting threes from Alyese Siefert and Grace Collene to open the frame for a 33-16 lead.

After the Roughriders’ Maylee Wetzel scored to cut the lead to 33-18, the Buckettes got a basket from Sophie West, and free throws from Myli Estridge and West to seal the win.

“In the second half, we finally started getting the ball in the paint a little bit, and attacking downhill and kicking out to shooters,” Jarrett said. “Our girls didn’t make shots; in the first half, I felt that we had some layups out of transition that we didn’t get to fall.”

Box score

Western Reserve     6         5          5          4 — 20

Buckeye Central       8       12         7        11 — 38

Western Reserve (6-15): Shots 8-43; 3-pt. shots 4 (Lilli Jarrett, Layken Barnhart); Free throws 2-2; Rebounds 35; Turnovers 21. Scoring: Kara Woodruff 1 0 2, Lilli Jarrett 1 0 3, Maylee Wetzel 1 0 2, Maddie Loyer 1 0 2, Layken Barnhart 3 2 9, Kendal Warthling 1 0 2.

Buckeye Central (10-13): Shots 11-42; 3-pt. shots 6 (Grace Collene 2, Nevaeh Metzger 2, Aleyse Siefert, Jenna Cianflone); Free throws 9-17; Rebounds 28; Turnovers 15. Scoring: Jenna Cianflone, 3 1 8, Aleyse Siefert 2 2 7, Myli Estridge 0 1 1, Grace Collene 2 3 9, Nevaeh Metzger 3 1 9, Sophie West 1 2 4.