OHSAA district loss doesn't spoil achievements by Louisville High School girls basketball

PARMA — Louisville High School's rousing year seemed about to get better when the Leopards scrambled to a 10-point lead over enrollment giant Mentor on Tuesday night.

All the wrong bounces in the second half led to a 49-44 loss in the Division I girls basketball district semifinals.

The end came too soon for coach Dan Moody, but when he thought back 20 years, it occurred to him there wasn't supposed to be a beginning.

Moody graduated from Louisville in 1981, studied at the University of Akron, and was minding his own business as a supervisor for Timken Steel.

"My daughter was a junior high coach at small school," he recalled. "She came up to me a few days before the season and said, 'The head coach just quit. She said, 'Will you coach?' I said, 'Nope. Too busy.'

"Then it was one day before the season. My daughter came up to me again. 'DAD!' I said no again.

"Pretty soon parents started calling me, and the players. I agreed to do it. Twenty years later."

Moody's impromtu trek wound from Heritage Christian to Fairless to Sandy Valley and to Lake Center Christian. He spent the last three years in the Louisville system before taking the girls varsity head coach job early last summer.

"The cupboards weren't bare," Moody said. "We have a lot of talent in the program. The JV team went 17-3 last year."

The top returnee was senior Brooke Haren, who set a program single-game tournament record with 27 points Thursday in Louisville's first sectional finals win since 2020.

Haren's 15 points against Mentor left her with her 447 for the season, second all-time in the program behind Kerri Strobelt's 528 in the 1980-81 season. Haren passed Mandy Jaeb (422 in the 2006-07 season) in the previous game.

"Brooke has been a wonderful leader for us," Moody said. "She's had three head coaches in four years. She told the girls at the start it was going to be rough with another coaching staff and another system.

"But I was blessed to have a really good coaching staff. We've got 63 years of experience among four coaches.

"I feel blessed to be back at my alma mater."

Mentor (17-7) advanced to Friday's 7 p.m. district championship game against Magnificat (18-6), which routed Westlake 58-27 in the first game of Tuesday's doubleheader in the Parma Valley Forge gym.

Louisville and Mentor were "evenly matched, like mirror images," Moody said as music blared and pregame buzz built.

The enrollment difference was a few miles wide. This was a poster-child game as to why Ohio is wrecking the current system of four tournament divisions and expanding to seven.

Mentor got three quick 3-pointers from Maggie Hawley to take an early 13-6 lead.

The Leopards stayed poised. Haren was methodically menacing, patiently probing for shots, forcing nothing, and scoring 15 first-half points.

"We knew No. 24 (Haren) was really good," said all-around standout Nina Rodriguez, who led Mentor with 17 points. "We had teachers who are taller than her come to practice and imitate her. We tried to take away her and No. 2."

No. 2 is junior guard Courtney Barwick, who reached the 100 career 3-pointers milestone en route to 22 points in the sectional semis.

"We wanted to run (Barwick) off the 3-point line," eighth-year Mentor head coach James Hrusovsky said. "She makes them comfortable in trying to get the ball to (Haren). We wanted to make someone else get them in their offense."

Haren didn't score in the second half. Barwick finished with 11 points. The last two quarters became a bad dream of long rebounds that kept going to Mentor and missed close-range shots.

Before that the Leopards played some of their best ball of the season.

"We outran them," Moody said.

Five-foot-9 junior Chay Cline set a tone on the boards. The defense held Mentor to one point across the first five minutes of the second quarter. In the closing moments of the first half, Haren swished a baseline jumper and Barwick hit a 3 to give Louisville a 27-17 halftime lead.

Mentor made its first five shots of the second half.

"So many putbacks that we always make weren't falling," Moody said.

Mentor led 47-44 when Haren missed a 3 with 34 seconds left. The Leopards ran out of time, bowing out with a 16-9 record.

"I told the players we've got to remember the good times, and the things we accomplished during the season that haven't been accomplished at Louisville in quite a while," Moody said.

"I don't expect a quiet bus on the way home. I expect them to celebrate."

This article originally appeared on The Repository: Louisville girls basketball season ends in OHSAA district semifinals