Over the next six minutes, the EHS man-to-man defense was stellar. It forced the Lady Knights into committing five turnovers and missing their first five shots. The Lady Hearts were also dominating on the boards, holding a 10-1 edge in that fourth quarter.

And on the offensive end, Effingham connected on 5-of-6 shots.

The result was a 13-0 scoring run that broke the game open.

Sidney Donaldson started the barrage by grabbing an offensive rebound and scoring. Alyssa Martin got loose underneath for a pair of baskets, Olivia Moser hit a short jumper, Brian Beals drilled a three and both Martin and Averie Wolfe made free throws.

With 2:19 left in the game, that six-point lead had ballooned to a 49-30 advantage.

“Defensively, we had another real good effort,” Schafer noted. “In the first half, we gave up two three-pointers to a girl we weren’t really focusing on and they used our aggressiveness against us a couple times for two back-door layups. But we did an incredible job the rest of the game, especially in that fourth quarter.

“Offensively, we went with a more guard-oriented attack in the last period,” Schafer added. “We had more shooters on the floor, plus I thought our ball movement was better with that group.”

The first 24 minutes were a different story. A pair of three-pointers from Delaney Hess helped Troy Triad take an early 9-6 lead, but Saige Althoff and Donaldson both scored four points, helping the Lady Tigers tie it up, 13-13.

Midway through the second period, the Lady Knights had a slim two-point lead, 17-15. But a free throw by Martin ignited a scoring surge that put EHS on top to stay. Althoff hit a pair of free throws and Bella Austin connected from behind the arc twice in the final 58 seconds. The second one came just ahead of the buzzer, capping the 8-0 run and sending the Lady Hearts to the locker room with a 24-17 advantage at intermission.

“Those two shots by Bella were huge,” Schafer admitted. “We showed great patience, moving the ball and getting that last-second shot. I thought it gave us confidence going into halftime.”

Back-to-back threes by Austin and Beals gave EHS an 11-point spread, 32-21, at the 3:10 mark of the third period. But the Lady Knights closed the quarter on a 9-4 run to trim the gap to 36-30.

The Lady Hearts had a balanced attack with six players scoring between 7 and 10 points. Martin finished with 10 points, while Austin and Beals both scored nine, Althoff and Donaldson finished with eight and Wolfe added seven.

Effingham shot the ball well. They hit 22-of-40 attempts, a 55 percent clip. They were 6-for-14 from three-point range, but just 5-for-13 at the foul line. The Lady Hearts dominated the rebounding, holding a 28-13 edge. Martin, Althoff and Austin each pulled down six boards.

The Lady Hearts extended their winning streak to 11 and improved to 27-4 overall, heading into the regional championship contest Thursday night.