After knocking on the door the past two years, Lake's girls basketball team finally got its first taste of regional tournament competition this season.

On Tuesday, coach Denny Meyer's squad saw its season end with a 45-36 loss to Fort Recovery in the Division III regional semifinals at Ohio Northern University. The Flyers reached the district finals the previous two seasons, only to get knocked off by Liberty-Benton.

Genoa, Lake's No. 1 rival in the Suburban Lakes League, took care of Liberty-Benton, the defending D-III state champion, in the district semifinals, so the Flyers didn't have to worry about getting past the Eagles.

Second-ranked Lake handed eighth-ranked Genoa a 46-31 loss in the district finals for its third win over the Comets (21-3) this season.

The Lake basketball team immediately after winning its district title. (Press photo by Harold Hamilton/HEHphotos. lifepics.com)

That set up a matchup against Midwest Athletic Conference runner-up Fort Recovery in the regional tournament. The Flyers were just the second Lake girls team (1986) to advance to a regional, but it didn't last long.

The Indians (22-2) used their pressure defense to rattle Lake into 28 turnovers, including 17 in the first quarter that led to a 19-7 lead. Before they knew what hit them, the Flyers (22-2) were down 10-0.

“They forced us into those turnovers,” Meyer said. “They defended us so tough, we couldn't get into our offensive sets. That's how we normally play. We'll scout teams and see what they run offensively, but our defense doesn't allow them to do that. Fort Recovery had by far the best man-to-man defense we've faced. We watched tape and knew that's exactly what they do.

“They were more physical than we were and faster than we were. Their athletes are better than our athletes. We did good at times, but their athleticism and quickness … We were having trouble boxing out, and they were quicker to the ball than we were.”

The Flyers were turning the ball over so often, in fact, that they hadn't even taken a shot before trailing 10-0. Lake battled back to trail by only six points, with the ball, twice in the fourth quarter but was unable to score.

“We've been down before, to Clyde and Anthony Wayne, and we've always been able to settle down,” Meyer said. “We did settle down. We got it down to eight at halftime. To me, it was a combination of our defense and us never playing on a stage like that, at the regionals.”

Lake graduates two senior starters, Kaysie Brittenham and Carly Huston, from this year's squad. Those two helped contribute to a 61-game regular-season winning streak, three SLL titles and three sectional titles.

“Kaysie leaves as one of the best players that have ever played here,” Meyer said. “Especially as a scorer. She's got almost every career school record and she was a four-year starter. She works harder than every other kid and she set the tone for every other kid at practice to work that hard.

“When I came in, Carly was going into her sophomore season and her improvement each year, it was unreal how much she improved. Her sophomore and junior year she was having problems finishing, even though she had good moves in the post. Last year she got better at it and she got better this year. Being a senior, she took great leadership.”

Hannah Cox and Hunter Johnson, both juniors, and sophomore Alyssa Shaffer will form the nucleus of next year's team. Lake's junior varsity team went 1-19 this season.

“We have a good eighth grade class, also,” Meyer said. “Some of them might be able to come in and help us right away. They didn't lose a game in seventh or eighth grade. We had some of our freshmen come up later in the year to use them more on varsity, and that kind of hurt our jayvee record. We were taking some of our jayvee players and saving their quarters for varsity.”

Meyer added that of his three seasons at Lake, including back-to-back 20-0 regular seasons in 2008-09 and 2009-10, this one was his most satisfying.

“To me, this was the best season,” he said. “We've had three very good seasons. All the adversity we went through this year, with girls not wanting to come out and having no depth - knowing we had five varsity players and people we were hoping could fill in - we were just so proud of the way everyone came together and played their roles.

“Alyssa had to play varsity and she knew what her role was. To me, that's what was great. We didn't have the best talent of the teams I've had here before, but everybody knew their role and they played them perfectly.”

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