Wellington head coach Eric Adams coaches them up in the fourth.

By Tracy McCue, Sumner Newscow — The Wellington Crusaders are back in the state championship game, after securing a 46-30 victory over Buhler.

It was a tale of two halves. Wellington had one of its worst first opening 16 minutes of the year, shooting a paltry 4-of-30 for 13.3 percent and leading by a mere 13-12 score. In the second half they were 11-of-23 for 47.8 percent and outscored the Maroon Crusaders 33-13.

With the win, Wellington will be playing Bishop Miege or Topeka Hayden in the 4A State Championship finals at 6 p.m. Saturday at the Tony Pizza Center.

Lyndi Barton gets the tip to open the game for Wellington.

“We’re excited, we expected to be in the state finals again,” said Wellington senior guard Britt Zeka, who has helped lead her team to two straight finals.

But for a while, Wellington looked anything like the team prognosticators were penciling in for a state championship appearance. Wellington opened the game missing its first 10 shots, and saw Buhler take an 8-1 lead.

The Lady Dukes were able to right the ship temporarily with B. Zeka and Val Norwood both hitting 3-pointers. It was tied 11-all at the end of one. Then came another dry spell where Wellington again went ice cold on 10 consecutive possessions.

Wellington led Buhler 13-12 at the half. And things were tense. The Red Crusaders had not scored a deuce for the first 16 minutes.

Kirstyn Gregory with a steal in the first half.

“That’s the thing about these girls, they never freak out,” said Eric Adams, Wellington head girls basketball coach. “We calmly told the team in the locker room, we knew we weren’t playing our style of basketball. We weren’t running our Arkansas break, getting any kind of rhythm with our shooting.”

Dru Zeka opened the second half with a 3-pointer and Wellington suddenly looked like its old self again. Lyndi Barton followed that up with a bucket for a Wellington 2-pointer and the Crusaders, those wearing red, were off and running.

The Crusaders opened up a 31-18 lead, went through a brief cold spell before Val Norwood hit a bucket at the third-quarter buzzer.

“This is basketball, we knew we weren’t making them in the first half,” B. Zeka said. “But we knew we could make them when it counted the most in the second half. You just have to have confidence.”

Duke fans were in full force.

Buhler never could find the basket. The Maroon only shot 23.4 percent for the game and 21.7 percent in the second half.

Wellington never let Buhler get within 12 points the rest of the game and secured the win.

Norwood led the Red with 20 points and B. Zeka had 12.

Now comes another championship between a public and private school. Wellington will be representing the taxpayers.

Full stats can be found here.