No. 6-seeded Panthers unable to get over hump in close consolation semifinal despite another dialed-in outing for Howell

South Medford found itself in a same story, different day situation Thursday morning in the consolation round of the Class 6A girls basketball state tournament in Portland.

Only one player rising to the occasion offensively, turnovers keeping the team from developing any consistent rhythm and not nearly enough stops defensively to account for either detriment.

Yet, for the second straight day, the sixth-seeded Panthers still had a chance at plucking away a victory and allowing them to exit the Chiles Center with at least some semblance of a state trophy under their arm before falling short 59-51 to No. 7 Southridge.

It just wasn’t to be for a South Medford squad still trying to adjust to the loss of senior floor leader Sara Schmerbach, who suffered a knee injury in the first round of the state playoffs.

“It’s just been a really tough year, for a lot of reasons,” said South Medford head coach Tom Cole. “There’s been a dynamic change from a group from July to now … and it all kind of played out over these last couple days.”

“It’s hard but I tried to remind the kids that this season has had a lot of adversity to it and, despite the outcomes of both of those games, it’s really hard to get here,” added the coach. “While it’s disappointing to lose, it’s still a great testimony to their willingness to continue to fight. They went down swinging today, too, we just didn’t have enough people to throw punches, and it caught up to us.”

South Medford junior Dyllyn Howell put on another dynamic show — knocking down her first five 3-point attempts to score 17 of her team’s 25 points in the first half — but the Panthers ran out of gas in the elimination game loss.

Howell went 6-for-7 from the field in the first half — less than 24 hours after scoring 10 of her team’s 12 points in the first half of a quarterfinal loss to Tualatin — and finished with 22 points overall on 8-for-16 shooting (6-for-12 from 3-point range).

Howell also supplied five rebounds and two steals Thursday morning after going for a game-high 19 points in a 47-37 loss to the third-seeded Timberwolves.

“I’m really proud of Dyllyn,” said Cole. “She’s had some growth this season that’s been really unbelievable.”

En route to a 6A state championship a year ago, South Medford dispatched the Skyhawks relatively easy in the quarterfinals with a 56-25 triumph, but Southridge (20-8) was much more determined this time around and the Panthers (22-6) certainly weren’t at their finest.

Ten first-half turnovers led directly to 16 points by the Skyhawks as they built a 34-25 halftime edge — following another second-quarter struggle for South Medford that led to the Panthers being outscored 10-3 over the final four minutes of the frame.

Junior center Mayen Akpan struggled to find the mark in starting 1-for-9 from the field for South Medford but, following a pep talk on the bench from Cole, Akpan returned midway through the third quarter and began to heat up. Akpan scored seven points, junior Jordan Barlow made three free-throws and Howell drained a deep 3-pointer during a 13-2 run that allowed the Panthers to pull even at 38-all with 2:14 to go in the third quarter.

Akpan finished 6-for-15 from the field for 16 points with nine rebounds, while Barlow was 3-for-11 shooting for nine points with four assists, three steals and three rebounds.

Southridge, however, answered with a 7-0 run to close the quarter, and routinely had an answer as the fourth quarter fluctuated from a three-possession game to a two-possession game, but never got closer than four points despite a frantic push by the Panthers to the end.

“We made a couple runs in the second half and late, but we just couldn’t get the stops,” said Cole. “We kept saying to just get one stop and then one score. It’s a three-possession game, and now it’s a two-possession game, but we just couldn’t muster enough of those consecutively to get us over the hump. You’ve got to credit that Southridge also made a lot of big shots. When you can’t get stops and they can make big-time buckets, it gets hard.”

South Medford’s ability to not allow the sudden loss of Schmerbach to derail their goal of reaching the state tournament was commendable, but just not sustainable against the state’s elite teams with only a few days to reconfigure roles.

“We were proud to see the effort responding to get here,” said Cole, “but the chemistry and reliability around personnel and who has to play what role, that’s not a formula you want to be working on in the state championship tournament. You want that stuff hashed out in December and January, not in March.”

“There were some good things that came out of it — Dyllyn Howell’s performances really elevated — but the ingredients were not necessarily ones that we had played with enough to just have some comfort, if you will, that that formula could work. There was a lot of learning, and this isn’t the stage to be learning, this is the stage to be doing.”

Southridge junior Sara Mangan scored 22 points with four assists and freshman Camryn Herzberg added 17 points and seven rebounds to lead the Skyhawks, who will face No. 9 West Linn in Saturday’s fourth-place final.

Payton Andersen came off the bench to pull in six rebounds and dole out two assists for South Medford, which also got four rebounds and two steals from Malia Taulani.

SOUTHRIDGE (59): Mangan 22, Scott 4, Lytchani 2, Herzberg 15, White 5, Lyden 0, Jankowski 3, Griffin 8, Jones 0. Totals: 22-48 8-9 59.

SOUTH MEDFORD (51): Taulani 1, Warberg 0, Barlow 9, Howell 22, Akpan 16, Imperial-Viray 3, Andersen 0. Totals: 18-52 8-13 51.

Southridge 17 17 11 14 — 59

South Medford 17 8 13 13 — 51

3-point goals — Southridge 7-20 (Mangan 2, Griffin 2, Herzberg 1, White 1, Janowski 1), South Medford 7-23 (Howell 6, Imperial-Viray 1).

Reach sports editor Kris Henry at khenry@rv-times.com or 458-488-2035