Chelsea Girls’ Stun by Lansing Catholic in Regional Final

The Chelsea girls’ basketball team saw its record-breaking season come to an end at the hands of a smother Lansing Catholic defense as the Cougars knocked off the Bulldogs 46-34 in the D2 Regional Final Thursday night.

The Bulldogs finished the season with a school record 25 wins and an overall 25-2 record on the season.

Chelsea started strong by taking a 15-8 lead after one quarter.

Senior Megan McCalla hit a pair of triples and late in the first hit an and-one to help McCalla become the Chelsea girls basketball all-time leading scorer at 1216 point. She surpassed the former Chelsea great Annie Terpstra for the top spot in the Bulldogs record books and finished with 1221 career points.

Leila Wells hit a triple to open the second quarter to push the Chelsea lead to 18-8, but the Cougars defense would kick it up a notch and shut down the Bulldogs from there.

Lansing Catholic went on an 11-0 run to take its first lead at 19-18 with 1:37 left in the half.

Chelsea answered with a 5-0 run including a Braiden Scheffler triple to give the Bulldogs a 23-19 halftime lead.

The Bulldogs had no answer for the Cougars halfcourt trapping defense in the second half. The Bulldogs had few open looks from the outside and when Chelsea tried to work into the paint Lansing Catholic smothered the ball forcing turnovers or off-balance shots.

Lansing Catholic held the Bulldogs to just three points in the third to take a 31-26 lead after three and the fourth did not get much better for Chelsea.

The Cougars scored the first six of the final quarter to push the lead to eleven 37-26 before a Wells putback stopped the Lansing Catholic run to make it 37-28 with 3:51 left.

The Lansing Catholic lead would grow to as much as 13 in the final minutes as the Bulldogs saw its season come to an end.

McCalla and Wells scored 14 points each to lead the Bulldogs, while Scheffler and Avery Lay had three each.

The Bulldogs had been averaging over 60 points a game on the season heading into the regional final before being held to its season low by the Cougars.

Photos by Mike Williamson and Dawn McCann