Girls Basketball: First Baptist savors title after winning first Ohio Christian School Athletic Association championship

With the score tied and a chance to win the school's first Ohio Christian School Athletic Association championship, First Baptist coach Lawrence Nagengast put his faith in all-district point guard Kate Burman. Burman put her faith in a higher power. Both of their prayers were answered. Burman's basket with 3.9 seconds left allowed the Sabres to win the OCSAA championship 48-46 over Dayton Dominion Academy on March 8 at Ohio Christian University in Circleville. The win was extra sweet for First Baptist because Dominion was the team that knocked it out of the OCSAA state tournament the past two years and also came up to Elyria to beat the Sabres 42-35 in the regular season. As Nagengast drew up an isolation play for Burman during a timeout with 15 seconds remaining and the score tied at 46, Burman sat at the end of the bench with a simple prayer. "Lord, if you're gonna have this happen, then let it happen," Burman said. Burman, who had 29 points in the title game, took over from there, dribbling the length of the court before hitting a 6-foot baseline jumper for the two biggest points in First Baptist history. The win capped a 23-4 season for the Sabres that included wins over Ohio High School Athletic Association schools Lake Ridge Academy, Medina Christian and St. Martin de Porres. "We accomplished pretty much every goal we set in November," Nagengast said. "Our record of 23-4 really speaks for itself in a positive way about this group." Not only did senior Olivia Quick seal the win with a steal that denied Dominion a chance at a final desperation shot, her veteran leadership gave a boost to a team of girls that had never defeated Dominion. "I tried to remind everybody that coming into the final game we had nothing to lose," Quick said. "I told them if we give our all we'll get first. I just didn't want everybody to stress over the little things." She showed that veteran poise by not lapsing into celebration mode when Burman gave the Sabres the lead. "As soon as Kate made the basket it never registered, 'Oh, we're up two I can chill,'" Quick said. "All I thought was where's the ball, they can't get the ball inbounds. I saw the girls inbounding and I jumped and stole the ball." Nagengast said the biggest difference between the meeting in January and the championship game was defense. "The first game we experimented with a 1-2-2 zone," Nagengast said. "It looked good on paper but we weren't ready to adapt to that. We played the zone the whole game at home. Down in Circleville we played man-to-man." Winning basketball has become a tradition for First Baptist, which averaged more than 21 wins over the past three seasons. "We always pull together as a team, which helps to push us forward," Quick said. "Because we're a small school we see each other all day, every day, from freshman to seniors. So we really become a community of close-knit people trying to do their best for each other." First Baptist ended the year on an eight-game winning streak. The Sabres held opponents to an average of 26.6 points and over the final two months of the season held five teams to 10 or fewer points. "Honestly beating a team that has beat us three times in a row, twice in that tournament, that to me meant as much as actually winning the championship," Nagengast said. "To see that level of improvement from a team is something special." Contact Todd Shapiro at (440) 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com.