THREE RIVERS — The perfect game plan was offset by a strong defensive effort as Edwardsburg advanced to the Division 2 girls district championship game with a 61-28 win over Vicksburg Wednesday night.

The Bulldogs (10-11) came out and took the air out of the ball against the Eddies’ zone defense.

Vicksburg also knocked down some long 3-pointers, which helped it take a 13-12 lead with 6:04 remaining in the first half.

Edwardsburg coach Jon Pobuda had his team switch to a 1-3-1 full-court press, which forced nine Bulldog turnovers and sparked a 17-2 run to end the second quarter.

Edwardsburg led 29-15 heading into the locker room at halftime.

Vicksburg never got any closer.

“Vicksburg had a great game plan to slow it down,” Poduba said. “Once we did make our run, with Claire Bartz at the top of our 1-3-1 getting pressure on them, we started playing better.”

Senior point guard Kaitlyn Zarycki, who led all scorers with 19 points, agreed with Pobuda about the role Bartz plays on defense.

“They did a nice job taking the air out of the ball. We just needed to calm down,” Zarycki said. “After that, Claire really hyped us up.”

The Eddies never let up in the second half.

Edwardsburg (22-0) outscored Vicksburg 18-6 in the third quarter to open up a 47-21 advantage.

Besides Zarycki, the Eddies also got 13 points from Bartz and seven points each from Chloe Bartz and Abbey Krugh.

Hannah Vallier led the Bulldogs with 14 points.

Edwardsburg will face Three Rivers tonight for the district championship.

The Wildcats defeated Paw Paw 61-38 Wednesday night.

The winner moves on to the Coloma regional. Tipoff is set for 7:30 p.m.