Strasburg-Franklin looks to build on historic state title run

Lydia Thomas was at Strasburg-Franklin’s girls basketball team banquet at the end of the 2024-25 season as a guest. Her older sister Riley was an outgoing senior.

Thomas took it all in, though, especially when head coach Tyler Bates first put it out there that he thought the ’25-26 campaign had the potential to be something special.

“I was at the banquet last year,” she said. “I remember when he said that.”

Bates turned out incredibly prophetic, as the Tigers rolled to a 25-5 record, the school’s first district title in nearly 50 years and the first girls basketball state title in school history.

All coaches say things like that at their banquets, though. Almost none have it work out that way.

The signs started surfacing early.

“I think I really saw how good we could be during our trips to Marietta and to Cedar Point and we kind of worked well as a team,” said Thomas a 5-foot-10 freshman post player who speaks like a seasoned veteran. “I saw how we fused together.

“When we got to Dayton (for the state Final Four), it was like, ‘Well, why not just win it?’”

Why not indeed.

The Tigers won by an average of 55-22 over their eight-game postseason run. Other than for a few tense moments of their state semifinal win over Ottoville, they were never really pushed.

When Ottoville got within 29-27 midway through the third quarter, Strasburg sophomore Maty Boylan stuck a 3-pointer to launch an 8-0 run that lasted the rest of that quarter.

Ottoville tied the score twice down the stretch, but plays by senior East District Player of the Year Sofia Secrest and Thomas turned the tide back.

Thomas’s 12-point, four-rebound game led the semifinal win. Secrest, who played all 32 minutes, scored 11 points. Senior post player Ally Miller had 4 points and a game-high 11 rebounds. Olivia Spidell scored just 2 points but had eight rebounds and seven assists.

Miller scored 5 points in the first four minutes of the state final as part of a 9-0 Tigers run to start what became a 38-17 win over Russia. Strasburg-Franklin was never threatened and just had to watch the clock run.

Miller finished with a game-high 17 points, making 7-of-8 shots, and led all rebounders with 10. Thomas had 8 points and 6 rebounds. Spidell had seven assists and the entire Tigers team kept Russia to 5-of-33 shooting, 0-of-12 from 3-point range;.

“The girls really bought into playing defense at the highest level that they could,” Bates said. “Once they saw maybe what we could they do, they went out and did it.”

It all emanated from that challenge, raised at that banquet. Bates made sure his players knew their potential, even if they couldn’t quite see it yet.

“We told the players and their families, ‘If you don’t believe you can win a state championship next year, you’re not going to reach your potential. It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. We lost to some good teams.”

Now they’ll take on the roll of the hunted, if they didn’t already have that. And they’ll have to move on without Secrest, Miller and Spidell, which means a ton will have to be replaced in terms of leadership, production and experience.

“I can’t talk about the senior class enough,” Thomas said. “They did it all. They had so much talent, so much leadership. They were so fun to be around.”

The Tigers will look to do it all again as an encore. Bates just needs to get working on that banquet speech.

“I think it will be fun,” freshman wing Delanee Herron said. “Even this year, Bates said we had a target on our back everywhere we went. Everyone wants to beat us now. It’ll be fun. We need to get even better now.”