The Holy Family Fire Girls Basketball headed into Sections playing 16 games with an overall record of 8-8. The Fire has played with 7 active players throughout the whole year and looking impressive as they advanced to the section semifinals vs Providence Academy.

Last Friday, the Fire headed down to Watertown-Meyer to face a talented and well-rounded Royals team with a record of 15-4. Earlier in the season, the Fire faced the Royals at home and lost a back and forth battle 67-57. Going into Sections, the Fire got seeded 5th, while the Royals landed the 4th seed. The Fire knew they had to come out with a lot of energy and passion if they were going to defeat the talented Royals team, and they did just that. Despite being down the majority of the game, the Fire kept hanging around and cutting into Watertown’s lead. The Fire were down 35-42 at the half, and coming out of halftime, the Royals scored the first two possessions pushing their lead to 46-35. It didn’t look good for the Fire, however, the Royals couldn’t keep their hands up as they got into foul trouble and sent the Fire to the free-throw to shoot 1 and 1 with ten minutes still left to play. This helped the fire cut into the lead, and eventually tying the game 61-61 with six and a half minutes left to play. That’s when the Fire got hot, sparking a 10-0 run to put the Fire up 71-61 with four and a half minutes left to play. With the Fire continually going to the free-throw line, the Royals were not going away as they cut the Fire’s lead to three with under 30 seconds left to play. The royals scored quickly out of the timeout, but with a quick foul from the Royals, Sophie Zay was sent to the line to shoot two free-throws to push the Fire’s lead to 80-75 with 17.9 seconds left. The Fire had outstanding defense keeping their hands up, the Royals scored a layup at the last second, but that didn’t matter as the buzzer sounded and the Fire would win 80-77 in an outstanding performance. This win was a well-rounded team win with everyone stepping up late in the game. With Bowlin’s 29 points, Neubauer’s 19 points, Zay’s 13 points, Hall’s 12 points,  Cizek’s 5, and Buchholz 2, the FIRE would complete the upset and advance to the Section Semifinals vs the #1 seeded Providence Academy on Tuesday, March 23rd at 7:00 pm.