VANDALIA - Coach Ryan Fleming's Summit Country Day Silver Knights had a 64-mile drive to their Division III district final game at Vandalia Butler High School. Dayton top seed Springfield Shawnee traveled but 31 miles.
No big deal for Fleming's Knights as they've been coached to work twice as hard.
Unfortunately, taking down Springfield Shawnee was a tougher task than expected. After leading most of the game, the Silver Knights relinquished the lead to the Braves early in the fourth quarter and couldn't get it back.
Matt Dahling's top-of-the-key 3-point attempt at the buzzer bounces high off the rim and out and the final buzzer sounded with Shawnee prevailing 39-37.
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"We tried to get something out of the timeout, but we didn't execute it," Summit Country Day coach Ryan Fleming said. "Bad draw by me. Late in the game, we just hit that scoring lull. That was our thing all year, when teams really guard us we just struggle to find ways to score."
Summit had a few chances in the final two minutes and had the ball for the final 31 seconds after a missed free throw.
Springfield Shawnee goes to 14-3 with senior Drew Mitch leading the way with 14 points, at one point early in the game, he cut an eight-point Summit lead down to one with a seven-point run of his own.
Shawnee also had a knack for finding loose balls as senior Jamon Miller was seemingly everywhere.
"They really got after the ball," Fleming said. "They really made it hard for our guards to get the ball reversed and get it inside. Their on-the-ball defenders were really effective. We got up seven in the second half. They hit us with a run and we couldn't respond."
Junior Keenan Schomberger led the Silver Knights with 12 points. He's one of eight on the current roster that should return for another run next season.
Summit Country Day was the 2021 Miami Valley Conference-Scarlet Division champion, their first since 2018 and their first under Fleming who is in his second year. The son of former Summit star and La Salle coach Dan Fleming won a postseason game a year ago but finished 11-13.
This year it was a little tougher as he had plans of scouting the Mariemont/Versailles game Saturday hoping to reach his first regional at the school.
Fleming took on an aggressive non-conference schedule despite only having one player, Gates Flynn, averaging over 10 points per game. In his final game, Flynn made a trio of threes.
The Division III Knights took on and lost to Elder and St. Xavier of the Greater Catholic League-South this season. St. Xavier finished second in the final state rankings and Elder spent a week at No. 1. Both are also district finalists. Summit also lost to Wyoming, a Division II district finalist and fell to Division I Lakota West 42-41 on a Nathan Dudukovich 3-pointer at the buzzer.
Much like his alma mater La Salle this winter, Fleming has followed the tough schedule philosophy to keep Summit alive in the tournament. For most of the game, the strategy seemed solid, but they couldn't manufacture points late making for a long bus ride home.
"Fighting through COVID, fighting through the schedule we had, I'm just thankful for what they did and so happy to be a part of them," Fleming said "I'm upset that we lost and I'm sad that we lost. The thing I'm most upset about is we don't get a chance to practice on Sunday and see those guys."
Summit Country Day finishes 18-6.
Shawnee moves on to play the Mariemont/Versailles winner in the Division III regional semifinal Wednesday back in Vandalia at 8 p.m
SHAWNEE 8 9 10 12 39
SUMMIT COUNTRY DAY 8 12 7 10 37
S - Fultz 3 0 8 Crowe 3 2 9 Miller 3 0 6 Griffin 1 0 2 Mitch 5 4 14
SCD - Bibler 1 1 3 Dahling 3 1 7 Cody 2 1 6 Schomberger 6 0 12 Flynn 3 0 9
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