Friday's Class D-2 tournament results:

Ewing 57, Falls City SH 51: When push came to shove in Friday’s Class D-2 state semifinal at Pershing Center, Ewing went back to basics and the second-ranked Tigers rallied for a 57-51 win against top-ranked Falls City Sacred Heart.

By repeating their win against  the Irish in last year’s D-2 championship game, the Tigers advanced to Saturday’s 9 p.m. final with a 22-3 record.

Ewing started Friday’s game in a diamond-and-one defense to stop Sacred Heart center Katelyn Wheeler. The Tigers held Wheeler to 10 points (11 below her average), but lost track of guard Macie Kuker, who scored a team-high 16 points and hit four second-half three-pointers to help Sacred Heart build a 38-32 lead late in the third quarter.

“We went to a diamond-and-one and slowed them down a little, but we finally went back to our bread and butter, our 1-3-1 zone and really tried to pinch the low post and contest (Kuker),” said Ewing coach Brock Eichelberger.

The result was a 20-10 fourth-quarter rally that sent the Tigers back to the final, a rally ignited by back-to-back threes by Abbey Schueth and Toni Gillespie in the first 1½ minutes of the fourth quarter.

“Those were huge,” Eichelberger said. “Our girls have been in big games all year and last year and the poise that they showed — you get down in an atmosphere like this, it’s tough.”

The Tigers led 49-48 after Sacred Heart’s Tori Olberding scored with 1:44 left, but Ewing ran off seven unanswered points and hit 6 of 7 free throws in the final 1:26.

Ewing’s Hayley Thramer led all scorers with 19 points, while Schueth added 17 points and a game-high 10 rebounds.

The loss ended Sacred Heart’s 15-game winning streak. 

—Tom Simons

Pleasanton 52, Chambers 51: Almost left for dead in the third quarter, fifth-ranked Pleasanton staged a furious rally in the fourth to knock off No. 3 Chambers 52-51 in a Class D-2 semifinal game Friday at Pershing Center.

The Bulldogs (24-1) trailed 33-21 early in the second half and were behind 45-36 in the final minute of the third period. But they launched a 12-0 run and led 48-45 after a Kristi Bauer free throw with 2 minutes and 18 seconds left.

 The Coyotes (23-3) tied it with 1:01 to go on a traditional three-point play by Randi Miller, but Ashley Axmann gave Pleasanton the lead for good at 50-48 with 25 seconds left with a basket off a pass from center Laurel Zwiener. Axmann put the game away with two free throws for a 52-48 lead with 6.9 seconds to go.

“I told the girls, ‘You’ve just got to take it. It’s all about heart and determination. It’s not going to be about X;s and O;s. It’s about you guys wanting it,’” Pleasanton coach Brenda Paitz said after her team won its 18th straight game and advanced to the state final for the first time since 1992.

Axmann scored 24 points and grabbed eight rebounds to pace the Bulldogs, who face second-ranked and defending champion Ewing in the championship game at 9 p.m. Saturday at the Devaney Sports Center.

Zwiener, a 6-foot-4 sophomore, had 10 points, seven rebounds and 13 blocked shots. Freshman guard Laura Tomjack led Chambers (23-3) with 20 points.

—Tom Simons