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Gilmour Girls' Basketball Team Advances to Regional Tournament

Elyria Catholic is next up on Wednesday

Jess Janota spent much of the season coming off the bench for the Gilmour girls basketball team. Moved into the starting lineup by coach Bob Beutel, Janota is now making a name for herself as the Lady Lancers have played their way into the Division III regional tournament.

Top-seeded Gilmour overcame a sluggish start and went on to down sixth-seeded
Villa Angela St. Joseph 56-47 in a district title game Saturday afternoon. That
victory advances the Lady Lancers to Wednesday’s 6:15 p.m. contest against Elyria
Catholic at the Cuyahoga Falls regional tournament.

Janota, a 6-foot-2-inch freshman post player, scored a team-high 16 points in the win over VASJ. She was even more impressive in a 65-49 victory over Beachwood in the district semifinals, scoring a career-high 31 points and grabbing 18 rebounds.

“She gives us a real advantage in terms of matchups,” said Beutel of Janota, who scored 93 points in the sectional and district games. “Jess has a real good nose for the ball and good hands.”

Brittany Layton finished with 15 points in the win over VASJ as Gilmour improved
to 22-2 overall on the season. An 18-7 run in the second period gave the Lady Lancers a lead they never relinquished.

Layton scored 17 points in the victory over Beachwood while Abbey Deckard chipped in with nine points and seven rebounds. Gilmour led the Bison by six points at the half and went on a 19-6 run in the third quarter.

Defense has been a constant for the Lady Lancers this season as they are holding opponents to 30 percent shooting from the floor.

“The age-old thing is when you’re playing good defense you will always be in the game,” said Beutel, who enters the regional with 563 career wins. “I’ve said all season that we are a defensive team that likes to score.”

On offense, Gilmour is shooting 42 percent from the floor as a team. “We had a stinker in our last game of the regular season but now we are getting back to playing the way we were when we were hitting on all cylinders in our holiday tournament in Florida.”

Elyria Catholic has been ranked in the Division III Top 10 for much of the season and was the state’s seventh-ranked team at the end of the regular season. “A lot of their numbers are comparable to ours,” said Beutel. “They are more of a senior-laden team where we have four underclassmen starting.”

The Lady Lancers played in the regional tournament two years ago and in the district final last year. A win against Elyria Catholic would advance the team to Saturday’s 1:30 p.m. title game against the survivor of the Youngstown Urusline-Orrville semifinal with a trip to Columbus on the line.

“This is a very strong regional,” said Beutel. “Even though we have a young team we have experience playing in big games against some talented teams. When you get to the regional the team that is able to settle down and play their game is the team that makes it to state.”

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