Watterson coaches and players deflected credit for Saturday’s upset of third-seeded Marysville in a Division I district final at Ohio Dominican like they were playing a game of hot potato.

Guard Sophie Ziel, whose 32 points keyed the 56-49 win, lauded a defense that helped the eighth-seeded Eagles climb back after falling behind 8-0 and held Marysville to 25 points in the second half and overtime.

Watterson won its first district championship since 2004.

“Our defense was our best asset,” said Ziel, who nearly doubled her season average of 17.2 points. “That’s what we’ve said is the best feature of our team all year. We’d already played them once and lost to them. We felt we had nothing to lose, so we just went out there and played our game.

“I have to give it to my teammates for giving me the ball and getting me open. You do what you have to do to win.”

Coach Sam Davis, a Watterson graduate who took over the program in 2020 after a successful 20-year run with New Albany’s boys, wasn’t about to volunteer that Saturday was his 600th career win.

“I didn’t want to take anything away from the kids,” Davis said. “Sophie is such a special player. We’re blessed because she’s not selfish. We run some things to get her open, but she moves so well without the ball. Her game is so much about what she does off the ball, too.”

Watterson (19-6) trailed 8-0 within the first two minutes without advancing past half-court. But the Eagles got within 15-13 after a quarter and 24-23 at halftime, and led 36-34 after three despite increasingly suffocating pressure from Marysville’s full-court trap.

Watterson never trailed in overtime.

Cameron Sparks’ jumper with 1:15 left made it 48-46, and Ziel hit six consecutive free throws to pad the lead.

Addy Tweed’s 16 points and 10 from Abbey Price led Marysville (22-4), which fell short of a second consecutive district title after winning the program’s first a season ago.

Star senior forward JoJo Eberhart was held to nine points and fouled out with 58.7 seconds left.

Watterson again will be an underdog in a regional semifinal at 6 p.m. Tuesday at Otterbein against Olentangy, the top-ranked team in the final Associated Press state poll. Marysville was ranked fourth.

“I know a lot of the girls on that team,” Ziel said. “We know what they do. We’ll be ready.”

Olentangy Liberty 60, Canal Winchester 53

Even if senior guard and Ohio University signee Gigi Bower gets most of the attention for fourth-seeded Liberty, coach Tom Waterwash ensured other players got their share of the limelight after fending off a furious Indians comeback in a Division I district final at Ohio Dominican.

Claire Mikola, a junior guard and Dayton soccer commit, hit 7 of 8 free throws in the fourth quarter, when Liberty (21-5) saw a 22-point lead cut to three. She scored a team-leading 15 points.

Senior guard Emma Karagheuzoff spread her production more evenly, scoring 12 of 14 points from 3-point range.

“(Karagheuzoff) is an incredible player and we are not even close to who we are without her,” Waterwash said. “Claire Mikola is one of the best guards in the state. You can’t press us. She’s turned into a really good scorer.”

Standout sophomore forward London Johnson scored 11 of her game-high 24 points in the fourth to help spur the comeback for 11th-seeded Canal Winchester (19-7). Michaela Dunn drained two 3-pointers late to make it 54-51 before the Indians fell short of their first district championship since 1986.

Liberty led 40-18 moments into the second half, thanks in part to a hefty advantage in rebounding.

“We were flustered so we started forcing things instead of doing the things we normally do perfectly fine,” Mikola said. “What helped us get through it, we just went back to our game. We let everyone do their job.”

Liberty will play Pickerington Central in a regional semifinal at 8 p.m. Tuesday at Otterbein.

Dunn added 13 points for Canal, which reached its first district final since 2020.

“We have nine kids we dress and we tried to start pressuring them and we couldn’t, so we had to get back and play a lot of half-court defense,” coach Johnathan Hedgepeth said. “We weren’t communicating well, you name it, we let them score too much. But we always preach that our teams don’t quit, and we didn’t.”

Olentangy 57, Upper Arlington 40

The second-seeded Braves relied on a seldom-used 1-3-1 zone defense during a fast start to pull away from sixth-seeded Upper Arlington.

Olentangy (24-1) bolted to leads of 10-0 in the first five minutes, 16-1 late in the first quarter and 23-4 by early in the second and held UA without a field goal for the first 7:08 in winning its first district title since 1998.

“We saw in film that we could really spread them out in the zone, slow them down and take their offensive output away,” Braves coach Jamie Edwards said. “We practiced 1-3-1 all week and didn’t get aggressive. Normally we jump out and trap on the top side but they pass the ball too well, so we stayed back. We’d give them what they wanted up top but not on drive and kick.”

Olentangy did particularly well keeping the ball away from UA sophomore forward Elizabeth Hunt, her team’s leading scorer at more than 18 points per game. Hunt was held to two points in the first half and finished with 13.

Whitney Stafford’s 19 points, 18 from Sydney Mobley and nine from Kate Mosher led Olentangy.

“We went into our gym this morning and saw the banner,” Stafford said. “We knew it was time to bring (a district championship) home.”

Ella Hanky scored 15 points for UA (22-4), which fell short of its first district championship since 2016.

“We couldn’t get into any rhythm,” coach John Wanke said. “If you don’t make shots, they get it out in transition and become really hard to defend. We’ve been shooting the ball really well all at a super-high clip and today just wasn’t our day.”

Pickerington Central 61, Teays Valley 27

Illinois signee Berry Wallace’s 21 points powered the top-seeded and second-ranked Tigers (23-3) to their ninth consecutive district championship in a game they controlled for the final three quarters.

Freshman Zoe Coleman added 16 points for Central against a team the players know well dating to preseason activities. The Tigers also will see the Vikings (17-9) twice a season starting next winter when they join the OCC-Buckeye after 40 years in the MSL.

“We do a lot of stuff in the offseason with them, scrimmaging with them, doing drills together … we’re well-versed with each other,” Central coach Chris Wallace said. “We have a lot of respect for them. We didn’t think this would be easy.”

Central led 19-10 after a quarter, then used its depth and speed to build a 31-16 halftime lead.

“Our depth, which we’ve built all year long … we don’t have just five kids; we’re a team,” Chris Wallace said. “We wanted to have pressure on them the whole game. That paid off.”

The final 4:30 was played with a running clock.

Alyssa Horsley’s nine points led 14th-seeded Teays Valley, which appeared in its first district final since moving to Division I in 2008.

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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: OHSAA girls basketball: Central Ohio district finals roundup