The New Franklin girls fell to rival Community in a low-scoring battle royale Friday night for the New Franklin Tournament championship, 30-25. The game is the second-straight title contest between the two teams in this tournament. Community, seeded first, has now won five straight New Franklin championships.

Friday’s championship started slowly. New Franklin, seeded second, missed a pair of free throws early on to get on the board first. It wasn’t until almost two minutes had elapsed that a basket was made when junior Brooklynn Glasgow put her team in front 2-0.

The Lady Bulldogs sank their first bucket a minute later when senior Carly Dodson found the basket to even the score. The two teams stayed neck and neck throughout the first quarter, with Community taking a late two-point lead on a bucket by senior Olivia Kuda with 13 seconds left to go up 8-6 after eight minutes.

Despite the sporadic scoring, both teams played strong defense, and nearly every shot taken was contested.

“It seemed like a defensive effort for sure,” said New Franklin coach Morgan Grosse. “That’s probably one of the lowest-scoring games we’ve ever had. I’d like to say that they beat us, but pretty much we took away what we thought was their best, and I think we just beat ourselves with some missed opportunities, whether it was at the free throw line or certain layups. Overall, we still competed and had a good shot at it.”

New Franklin took a brief lead in the second quarter when sophomore Brynn Belstle knocked down a 3-pointer to make it a 9-8 game. But Community responded 10 seconds later with a free throw by sophomore Aaliyah Welch to spark a 6-0 run over three minutes that concluded with a 3-pointer by senior Kayla Jett. New Franklin finished the first half shooting 1-for-4 from the free-throw line to go into the break down 14-10.

“A couple of turnovers and some missed free throws and layups really hurt. Especially when it’s a low-scoring game,” Grosse said.

The third quarter was much the same, with the Lady Trojans continuing to pull away. New Franklin cut the lead to three points on 1-for-3 free-throw shooting in the first two minutes. But Community would go on to outscore the Lady Bulldogs 6-2 throughout the rest of the quarter to lead by seven with one quarter remaining. New Franklin senior forward Kelsi Fair also picked up her fourth foul in the third quarter.

But it was the other Fair sister who stepped up in the fourth quarter with six of New Franklin’s 10 points over the final eight minutes. KeBrea Fair, a sophomore, knocked down a pair of free throws to get things rolling for the Lady Bulldogs. New Franklin would then go on an 8-1 run that held Community scoreless for five minutes. Another free throw from KeBrea Fair cut the deficit to two points with 49 seconds on the clock. Unfortunately for New Franklin, it would be the final basket of the game.

“I knew we had an opportunity,” explained Grosse. “I knew that we needed to foul, too, though. At the same time, I knew they were going to take their time, so I knew we needed to be aggressive. We still were in the favor as far as fouls. We hoped to get a steal somewhere in there.”

New Franklin benefited from a lopsided foul count but quickly burned through the bonus, putting Community on the line five times in the last 1:02. The Trojans made just four of nine free-throw shots down that final stretch.

“They’re a quick team, and also, they had a lot of help in the paint, which clogged up the paint a lot for us,” Grosse said. “I felt like a lot of things weren’t as open, which made it more of a chess match.”

Community not only contested most of New Franklin’s shots but also keyed in on the Lady Bulldogs’ top scorers. Senior Carly Dodson scored just eight points on the night, and freshman Lily Chitwood was held scoreless. The Fair sisters combined for 10 of their team’s 25 points, with KeBrea leading the way with seven. Kelsi finished with three, all from the free-throw line. Belstle finished with seven points and made the team’s only 3-pointer of the game.

New Franklin converted 10 of 22 free-throw chances as a team, compared to Community, which made seven of 16.

Kuda led all scorers with 12 points for Community. She sank three of four free throws in the final 40 seconds of the game.

Friday’s loss marks the second in a row for New Franklin against Community in the championship of the New Franklin Tournament. The Lady Bulldogs fell 51-33 a year ago. They also lost 60-31 in the tournament final in 2020.

“They’re pretty heartbroken,” Grosse said about her players after the game. “I still remind them we’re 10-3. So there’s nothing to hang our heads about for sure. We want to bounce back on Tuesday against Glasgow and then Friday against them again.”

New Franklin will get another crack at Community on Friday with a 6 p.m. tip-off at home. It will mark the 11^thmeeting between the two familiar foes since 2016. Community has won all of those games.

 We’ll see them again in a week, so hopefully, we’ll tune up some things that we need to work on,” Grosse said.