The Shenandoah girls basketball team defeated Monroe Central 60-52 to claim the Ohio Valley Athletic Conference 3A championship Saturday at the ECO Center. (Photo Provided)

BELMONT — Shenandoah held off a furious comeback bid by the Monroe Central Seminoles to capture the Ohio Valley Athletic Conference 3A championship with a 60-52 win Saturday afternoon at the Eco Center on the Campus of Ohio University Eastern.

The Zeps led by as many as 12 points in the opening half before settling for a 29-21 lead at the intermission.

The Troy Baker-coached Seminoles managed to take a bite out of the Zeps lead heading to the final quarter as they out-pointed Shenandoah 17-13 in the third period to cut the lead to 42-37.

After a Molly Van Fleet inside bucket opened the final quarter the Seminoles responded with 7-0 run to tie the game at 44-44.

A three-pointer followed by a two-pointer by Mayzie Emery pulled the ‘Noles to within one possession and a bucket by Brylee McFrederick tied things up at 44-44 with just under six minutes to play.

Frontier’s Willow Smitley (22) goes up for a basket during the Ohio Valley Athletic Conference 1A finals against Cameron Saturday at the ECO Center. (Photo by Mike Morrison)

Monroe Central would never be able to wrestle the lead away from the Zeps as they took care of business at the charity stripe and pulled away to their second win of the season in as many tries against the “Noles.

The Roman Thompson-coached Zeps were led in scoring by Brenna Leach with 19 while Emily Moore and Molly Van Fleet chipped in with 17 and 11 points respectively.

Emma Dailey also reached double-digits with 10 points for Shenandoah as they improved to 17-2 on the season.

Both Leach and Van Fleet completed double-doubles as Van Fleet grabbbed a game-high 11 boards while Van Fleet pulled down 10.

The Seminoles (16-4) were led in scoring by Brylee McFrederick with an even 20 points while Emery and Jadyn Miller finished with 10 and 9 points respectively.

CAMERON 39, FRONTIER 31

After already owning a pair of wins over the Cameron Dragons in the 2025-2026 season, the Frontier Cougars had to like their chances of making it three in a row heading into Saturday’s 1-A title tilt.

The third time would prove not to be a charm in any form for the Mike Cisler-coached Cougars as they came up on the short end of a 39-31 loss to the Dragons who claimed their sixth consecutive 1A crown.

Frontier could just never really get going all afternoon long as they fell behind early and never really made a serious run in a game that by all accounts wasn’t as close as the final score indicated.

Cameron led by five at the end of the first quarter and then stretched that lead to 15 after they scored the first 10 points of the second.

Kendra Thomas and Emma Francis accounted for all but one of those 10 points as the Dragons lead swelled to 20-5 with just over two minutes to play in the half.

The Cougars cut the lead to 12 a couple of times in the final quarter but could get no closer as they dropped to 10-9 on the season.

Thomas was the only scorer to reach double figures for the winners with 11 while Francis added 8.

Frontier got a stand-out game from Anna Bowersock who finished with a double-double after scoring 14 points and pulling down 11 rebounds.

Willow Smitley added six for Frontier.

SOUTHERN LOCAL 49, CALDWELL 40

The undefeated Southern Local Indians took on the Caldwell Redskins in the 2A championship game looking for win number 21 in a row.

The Heather Saliba-coached Redskins gave Southern all they wanted and then some before they eventually fell to the Indians 49-40.

Caldwell got off to a miserable start as they allowed the Indians to score the first 13 points of the game.

A three-pointer by Breighlee Moracco finally got the Redskins on the board and Caldwell immediately began the task of digging themselves out of the big hole they were buried in.

The Redskins managed to get the lead down to eight at the end of the first quarter and out-pointed the Indians 15-9 to cut the lead to just two (24-22) at the break.

Southern Local won the third quarter by a 9-4 margin and then managed to out-score the Redskins 16-14 in the final quarter to escape with the 49-40 win.

The Redskins had an extremely cold shooting night as they made just 4-of-24 shot attempts from behind the arc with most of them coming on wide open looks.

Leading the Way for the Lady ‘Skins was Moracco with 12 points and Lexi Franklin with 11.

Mea Hendershot added seven while Camy Crock came off of the bench to score six points and haul down 14 boards for Caldwell.

The winners were led by Allyssa Shrodes with 27 points including six from behind the arc.

Katie Kellogg had a great game as well as she finished with 11 points seven steals, seven rebounds and five assists.

The loss drops the Cougars season mark to 10-9.