Southern’s Haylee Kellogg shoots against Shadyside on Monday. (Morning Journal/Michael Burich)

SALINEVILLE — Having played just four opponents with records over .500 this season, Southern Local’s girls basketball team was in need of a challenge.

It got just that when Shadyside pushed the Indians in a hotly contested Ohio Valley Athletic Conference Class 2A semifinal on Monday.

Led by freshman Katie Kellogg’s 31 points, 13 rebounds and eight assists, Southern survived to advance to its first OVAC final with a 68-58 victory over the Tigers.

Top-seeded Southern improves to 20-0 and its one win away from tying the school record for wins in a season. The Indians will meet No. 2 seed Caldwell at 2 p.m. on Saturday at the ECO Center in St. Clairsville for the title. Caldwell (15-4) beat No. 3 seed Steubenville Central 71-45 on Monday in the other semifinal.

“They had to fight through adversity and that’s the skills you have to learn,” Southern coach Mike Skrinjar said. “There have been games where they just played well and the score gets to where it is. I thought about some things in our league (the Eastern Ohio Athletic Conference). Teams have been beating other teams, so it’s not like they weren’t being challenged. It’s just that there was times we were playing really, really well. So, when we get someone to come in here to challenge them it was great to see the character they have been building at practice get displayed.”

Kellogg said she was glad the team got tested as tournament time approaches.

“We haven’t had a lot of competition,” Kellogg said. “There has been a few games where we’ve had some heres and theres but having a game that is going to help get us into tournament play it’s a good thing.”

Shadyside (9-10) put a damper on things in the relatively full gym by tying the game at 34 with 7:11 left in the third quarter. It was not something the Indians were used to this season. They responded with a 12-3 run.

Kellogg said she wasn’t even thinking about the score at that point.

“When the ball goes through the hoop on their end we have to get it and go,” Kellogg said. “We don’t want to give them any time to set up their defense.”

Kellogg’s offensive output did slow in the third period, so the Indians had to find other weapons to counter a Shadyside team that routinely bombed away from three-point land.

One of those that stepped up was freshman forward Kalayah Crute. She had 19 points and 13 rebounds in the win including 12 points in the third quarter.

She said that she started to focus more on getting rebounds as the Tigers had been largely successful on the offensive end.

“We had to get back at it because we weren’t boxing out enough,” Crute said. “They had like four offensive rebounds on the one play. At halftime the coaches told us to box out and hustle down the floor.”

Crute said Shadyside was the best team the Indians have played this season. The Tigers’ 58 points was the most scored on Southern this season. The second most was by Frontier with 40 back on Nov. 29.

“It was definitely one of our harder games,” Crute said. “They had really good defense. We had to talk more on our screens because they had some shooters. They were also bigger than some of the teams we have played.”

Allyssa Shroades also hit two big threes in the third quarter to keep the Indians in gear.

Shadyside didn’t fade away completely, however, and had a chance to make a run at the end of the game when it pulled within four with 2:41 left. Southern did not allow the Tigers to score after that.

“They’re very well coached,” Shadyside coach Serge Gentile said. “They are guard-oriented. A lot of teams that we have played are post oriented. We played some good guards but none as skilled as Kellogg as far as ball handling is concerned. They have multiple girls that can shoot it which reminds me of us.”

Maddy Jones aided Southern’s effort on the boards with 10 rebounds. Makenna Jones had five rebounds and two steals.

For Shadyside, Kaci Tsoras hit for 22 points on a night when the Tigers made 11 threes.

Game notes

• Katie Kellogg said the Indians didn’t stop practicing with school out of session during the aftermath of last week’s snow storm. She said the team put in about two and a half hours on days when the school was closed.

• Caldwell beat Shadyside 53-38 and 49-35 in regular season meetings.

“Caldwell has a really good guard too,” Gentile said. “They’re a guard oriented team as well. It will be an exciting game on Saturday and I hope people go watch it.”

• Caldwell is ranked 12th in Div. VII in Ohio by MaxPreps rating system. Southern is 29th in Div. VI.

• Southern’s opponents with records greater than .500 were Lisbon, United, Frontier and Columbiana. The Indians have played Lisbon and United twice. The second meeting with Columbiana is set for Feb. 11.

SH: 13-15-17-13–58

SO: 16-18-23-11–68

SHADYSIDE SCORING: Aylah Albright 4-2-10, Cameron Kolvek 5-0-14, Kaci Tsoras 7-3-22, Jaylynne Johnson 2-0-4, Greta Green 0-0-0, Layla Samsa 0-0-0, Ali Weatherson 0-0-0, Adrianna Hines 2-0-5, Kamryn Parker 1-0-3. TEAM TOTALS: 21, 5-8: 58.

SOUTHERN SCORING: Katie Kellogg 8-14-31, Allyssa Shroades 3-0-9, Kalayah Crute 8-3-19, Makenna Jones 0-2-2, Hailey Maines 0-0-0, Haylee Kellogg 1-1-4, Raelea Carosiello 0-0-0, Emma Boyle 0-0-0, Maddy Jones 1-1-3. TEAM TOTALS: 21, 21-30: 68.

Three-point goals: Shadyside 11 (Kolvek 4, Tsoras 5, Hines, Parker), Southern 5 (Shroades 3, K. Kellogg, H. Kellogg).