Bellevue 1 win away from state

NORWALK — Don't think.Just shoot.Quiet since scoring five of Bellevue's first six points, Lady Red senior Brooke Brown came up with the biggest shot of Bellevue's season.Her 3-pointer gave the Lady Red the lead and No. 1 Bellevue's defense did the rest, finishing off Lutheran East 51-46 in a Division IV regional semifinal Wednesday at Norwalk High School."Honestly, I don't even think I was thinking really," Brown said. "I just shot it and it went in. That was huge. I can barely even talk right now."Bellevue improved to 25-1 and will face Warrensville Heights (22-4) at 7:30 p.m. Saturday for the regional championship back at Norwalk.The 25 wins ties a school-record set by the 2017-2018 squad."This is crazy. We have three more games left," Brown said. "I hope we're going to win state, but we're going take it one game at a time."The Lady Red offense limped to just two points the first six-plus minutes of the fourth quarter and trailed the No. 5 Falcons (15-6) 46-43. Kaitlyn Turinsky, who was massive throughout again for Bellevue, scored down low to cut the lead to one.The Lady Red then forced a jump ball with 1:06 to play. After getting the ball up the court, Brown found the ball in her hands in the corner just in front of the Bellevue bench. Her confident shot found nothing but the bottom of the net. That gave Bellevue a 48-46 lead with 55 seconds left."She hit the biggest shot of the night, I think," Bellevue coach Kory Santoro said. "She's a senior who has played a lot of big games for us. She led the area in 3-point shooting last year. I told her she was going to hit shots when we need them. Tonight, that was true."Hailey Rees then picked a steal, but had too much momentum going to the hoop as she missed the layup. Lutheran East had a chance to tie or take the lead, but an offensive foul was the Falcons' first turnover of the fourth quarter.Rees was fouled and split the free throws for a 49-46 lead with 27.5 seconds left. Lutheran East missed a pair of shots on the other end and Rees was again fouled. The senior, who has been through all the biggest moments for Bellevue, calmly made both free throws with 12.5 seconds.The Lady Red fended off Lutheran East one more time to seal the win.Starting with Turinsky's hoop, Bellevue finished the final 1:40 of the game on an 8-0 run."We changed our defense up a little bit," Santoro said. "We saved our '50-up' until we needed it. It worked two or three times there and forced them into some turnovers. These girls persevered. They went through some adversity a little bit and never had any quit in them."The Lady Red offense ran through the 6-foot-3 junior Turinsky for a large portion of the game. She finished with 15 points, 14 rebounds and four blocked shots. Turinsky kept the Falcons out of the paint for most of the night. Otherwise, she could've had double the blocked shots."We knew coming in they had no one to guard her," Santoro said. "Kaitlyn can put the ball on the floor like a guard, so she's a tough matchup. She's two dribbles from the 3-point line and she's putting it in. That's a tough matchup, especially when you have someone slower on her. She's going to expose that."Bellevue's defense struggled in the first half. After starting the game 15 minutes late due to Lutheran East not making it to the site until almost 5:45, the Lady Red couldn't contain a hot shooting Falcons team.Bellevue led 15-14 after one quarter, but Lutheran East got a triple from Maliona Martin and two from Dakota Porter to surge ahead 27-18 with 3:09 left in the second quarter."They're athletic," said Santoro of the Falcons. "They know how to play and credit to them, they hit some outside shots. They hit some timely shots. They're not here because they're not good. Everybody here is good. We easily could've got beat this game, but we didn't."Turinsky scored six of Bellevue's last nine points of the half and Ellie Freitag splashed in a 3. That allowed the Lady Red to draw within 31-27 at halftime.With a renewed push on defense, Bellevue limited Lutheran East to nine points in the third quarter. Five of those came in the final 49 seconds of the quarter as the Falcons sliced the Lady Red's 39-35 lead to 41-40 after three quarters.Rees scored to open the fourth quarter, but consecutive tallies by Ja'tayvea Caldwell gave the Falcons a 44-43 lead with 3:45 to play. Caldwell added two more free throws with 2:01 to play."Defense is always something we take pride in," Brown said. "We knew if we got a couple stops and could make a shot, then we'd have the game. We had to get a steal and not commit any turnovers."We have to come in every game focused and ready to go. We know it's going to be a test. It's tournament time, so anything can happen."After making 5 of 8 3-pointers in the first half, Lutheran East didn't make any on just three attempts in the second half."We knew they could shoot it, but a couple times it was us not rotating the right way," Santoro said. "We left girls wide-open on two of the 3s. That was talked about at halftime."Rees finished with 14 points for Bellevue, who will play in its first regional final since 2019."Our three senior leaders have been incredible captains and incredible leaders," said Santoro of Brown, Rees and Turner. "I know where they want to go and we've got one more game Saturday to get there." LUTHERAN EAST (15-6)Maliona Martin 1 0-0 3, Taliyah Pollard 2 0-0 6, Dakota Porter 2 0-0 6, Chineyenwa Ikekwe 2 0-0 4, Danaija Woodard 4 1-3 9, Ja'tayvea Caldwell 4 4-6 12, Janae Smith 3 0-0 6. TOTALS 18 5-9 46BELLEVUE (25-1)Ellie Freitag 3 0-0 7, Brooke Brown 3 0-0 8, Hailey Rees 4 5-8 14, Audrey Turner 2 1-2 5, Kaitlyn Turinsky 6 3-7 15. TOTALS 19 9-17 51Lutheran East 14 17 9 6 — 46Bellevue 15 12 14 10 — 51Three-point goals: Lutheran East 5 (Pollard 2, Porter 2, Martin); Bellevue 4 (Brown 2, Freitag, Rees)