Cassie Sant may have outdueled Ms. Basketball winner Natasha Howard, but Fairmont couldn’t outdo Toledo Waite.
Thanks in part to 22 points from Howard, Waite survived 25 points from Sant and advanced to its first state final Friday with a 61-55 win over the Firebirds in a Division I state semifinal at the Schottenstein Center in Columbus.
“Coming in we had to get a feel for how they were going to guard Cassie and who was going to be on her and how they were going to get around her,” Fairmont head coach Tim Cogan said. “Obviously the second half they couldn’t and it hurt them. Cassie did an unbelievable job down the stretch getting us right back in it. It just seemed that when we would answer they would counter. We just couldn’t get over the hump.”
Fairmont led only once, 17-15 early in the second quarter, but never went away. Several times in the second half Waite threatened to put the game away but simply couldn’t.
A lot of that had to do with Sant.
A 6-2 senior headed to Dayton, Sant scored 19 second half points, including 11 in the fourth quarter. Another key play she contributed was getting Howard to pick up her fourth foul with a minute left in the third quarter. The Florida State recruit went to the bench and didn’t reappear for six minutes.
“She was a real good player,” Howard said of Sant. “I’ve never played against someone like me who has the inside and outside game that I do. I take my hat off to her.”
With Howard out, the Firebirds cut the Waite lead to three points five times in the fourth quarter and trailed by one, 56-55, after a Sant lay-up with 2:19 left. The Firebirds, however, would not score again as a Holley Carey 3-pointer with 1:33 left narrowly missed. The shot would have given Fairmont, down 57-55 at the time, the lead. Waite closed the game on a 5-0 run.
The Indians will play the winner of Friday’s second semifinal between Canton McKinley and Reynoldsburg at 8:30 p.m. Saturday for the D-I title.
Miriah Haynes and Courtney Jackson each scored 12 points for Waite, while Carey scored 13 for Fairmont.
Still, the biggest individual battle was the one waged between Sant and Howard.
“I love going against taller competition,” Sant said. “I try to hold my own best I can and it pushes me harder.”
Said Cogan: “I thought she did an unbelievable job with (Howard) tonight.”
He wasn’t alone.
“(Fairmont) held their composure,” Waite head coach Manny May said. “And Cassie Sant really dominated the paint tonight.”
