CARROLLTON - It’s been three years of no regional championships for the Carrollton girls sports programs.

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On Thursday night in Carrollton, the drought ended.

The Lady Hawks defeated the Greenfield-Northwestern Lady Tigers 51-46 in the Class 1A Carrollton Regional finals. Carrollton will await the result of Lebanon versus Metro East Lutheran tonight and play the winner on Monday night at North Greene High School in the sectional semifinals.

“It feels awesome. I’m proud of these girls,” Carrollton head coach Blaine Hartwick said.

Claire Williams scored 15 points to lead the Lady Hawks, and Kaylie Rhoades added 12. Additionally, Hannah Krumwiede finished with eight, and freshman Ava Uhles chipped in seven.

“You see the points on the scoreboard, but her defense was unbelievable and Marley [Mullink] too,” Hartwick said. “Claire does all the little things right that goes unnoticed. She’s worked so hard the last two years for me. I can’t say enough about her.”

“[Carrollton] made shots. Some of their kids of don’t make a lot of shots stepped up, and they knocked the ball down from outside,” Greenfield-Northwestern head coach Caleb Williams said. “That was our game plan, sag off of them a little bit. Make them hit some outside shots, especially their post-players and they did.”

Kassidy Walters poured in a game-high 21 points for Greenfield-Northwestern. Laiken Heavner followed with ten points, and Macy Walker added six. Walters was one of the best scorers in the Riverbender area coming into the regional finals averaging 22.5 points per game, and it’s been a rarity to shut her down all season and for most of her excellent career.

“I think two teams have been able to do it all year long and I think in both of those games her back was not feeling well. Not that I’m going to give her an excuse and not that she will ever give you an excuse,” Williams said with a laugh. “Shutting her down is a task for any team.”

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“Marley was the one guarding her, but the team effort from Claire too and everybody else rotating,” Hartwick said. “We gave up 21, but we didn’t give up 30. She’s a good player.”

It was 14-12 in favor of Greenfield-Northwestern after one-quarter of play, and they got their biggest lead of the game with a 4-0 run to start the second leading 18-12. Carrollton would find their rhythm though and went on a 12-3 run to lead 24-21 at halftime.

Midway through the third quarter, the Lady Hawks fueled themselves with a crucial 14-2 run that got the lead up to 12 at 43-31. It looked as though Carrollton would cruise to the next round with all of the momentum.

However, Greenfield-Northwestern didn’t zip up. They made it a ballgame down the stretch.

The Lady Tigers sped the Lady Hawks up in a full-court press which caused a couple of turnovers but mainly got them to rush shots in transition. Through the majority of the second half, Greenfield-Northwestern was in shooting slump, but they started hitting shots when they needed to make them during that run.

“This team that I have this year and year next will never give up. They will push. They want to win. Of course, I’m proud of them,” Williams said. “That’s how I coach them every day, so I’m glad to see they play that way on the floor every night.”

Meanwhile on the Lady Hawks side of things they managed to get good looks down low by isolating Williams and Rhoades, but they couldn’t make the short shots.

“That’s what we wanted, and it doesn’t look good. We were getting layups, but missing them,” Hartwick said. “[We] run 30-45 seconds off the clock and you get an easy shot on the block and [we] can’t finish it.”

The Lady Tigers got as close to 47-43 and even had a couple of chances to cut the lead to one possession with under three minutes to play. However, Rhoades broke the Carrollton drought with a basket that gave them relief with less than two minutes to play.

“That kinda let us relax a little bit because that makes it a two-possession game and we were able to get that up to seven,” Hartwick said.

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