Breaking away from the heartbreak

"That's definitely the best defense we've played in a while," Seneca coach Barb Beck said after the game. "That was nice to see, and we also attacked the basket."

Both were true and both resulted in a 13-4 lead by Seneca at the end of the first quarter. Chelsie McCormick and Danielle Hauch each scored four points to help build that lead.

"At this point it's one and done so we knew that we had to come out and play our 'A' game," McCormick said. "We knew we had to come out and we knew we had to score."

McCormick is a 5-3 point guard while Hauch is a 5-8 forward.

"Coach Beck said that we needed to be patient tonight on offense and we were told to look for the ball in the post," Hauch said. "Coming into the regional we have a 0-0 record and we just want to push our way through. We won a regional game and we get to play tomorrow night."

Thursday is the championship game at 7:30 p.m. when Seneca takes on Aurora Christian. Aurora advanced by beating Reed-Custer 60-34.

Beck said that the quick start by her team was a great confident booster.

"We have lost a lot of heartbreakers lately ... jumping out early like that helped get the team some confidence," Beck said. "They were able to play a whole different game tonight because of it."

"We were patient tonight," McCormick said. "When we lost those tough games, it was because we were not patient."

Seneca took a 25-8 halftime lead as five different girls scored in the second quarter. It was 37-22 at the end of the third.

"We felt coming in that if we stopped their outside shooting and got the long rebounds we'd be fine. But if they had gotten hot, it would have been a whole different game. We were able to stop them from second efforts."