CANTON, Ohio — The 31-year drought is over. Avon Lake led from the opening possession on Sunday, ultimately coming away with a 43-39 win over Brush to land in the Division III state championship game on March 14 at the University of Dayton Arena. “It means a lot, it feels good to come this far with them,” junior forward Olivia Miller said with a smile on her face. “It feels amazing.” Two months ago, the Arcs defeated the Shoregals 70-52. Sunday afternoon was different as the Shoregals took a lead from the opening tip. “I thought the start was big. I thought us taking a lead early and getting comfortable and confident was really good,” Shoregals coach Paul Appel said . “Our girls believed we were a different team but sometimes you need to see it.” The Shoregals (23-5) will take on three-time defending state champion Cincinnati Purcell Marian (23-6) on Friday in the state final. Brush ends its season 24-3. Both teams came out with physical defense that forced a lot of contested shots early on. The Shoregals never trailed in the first quarter and even got out to a 7-3 lead six minutes into the game. They continued that early momentum and took a 7-5 lead after the first quarter. It took sophomore and Ohio Ms. Basketball nominee Tatiana Mason 10 minutes to score her first points of the game. She often found herself facilitating and finding open teammates throughout the first half. For the entire first half, it seemed like the Arcs were trying to attack the zone defense but they couldn’t get anything to fall near the rim. Neither team made a 3-pointer in the first half, but the inside presence of sophomore forward Molly Milligan was a problem for the Arcs throughout the night. She ended the first half with a game-high eight points. The Shoregals held Tatiana Mason and Nyla Mason to a combined six points and took an 18-15 lead at halftime. “They clogged up the middle and we missed a lot of runners in the middle and layups, it’s too many points,” Brush coach Demarris Winters said. “Avon Lake had answers for everything.” The Arcs continued to answer the Shoregals throughout the second half. Second-chance points were big for the Arcs, often leading to a couple of layups that finally went through. Tatiana Mason gave the Arcs their first lead of the game one minute into the fourth quarter. But then came the Shoregals answering on the other end. Senior guard Bre Jones came off the bench in the fourth quarter to knock down a 3-pointer along with Miller and Olivia Tobin making plays offensively to continue to lead late into the fourth quarter. With her team leading 41-29 with under 20 seconds left, Miller made two free throws to make it a two-possession game. The Arcs weren’t able to find clean looks at the end, which left the Shoregals celebrating just one win away from a state championship. Miller said that matching the physicality from the Arcs played an imperative role in the outcome of the game. “We knew they were going to come out physical, so we just knew to come back physical as well,” Miller said. “We kind of made them play a little more in the half court and when they came to pressure us, we made a lot of good decisions to make them pay with layups on the other end,” Appel added. Miller paced the Shoregals offense with 16 points. Tobin added nine points to go along with eight from Milligan. For the Arcs, Nyla Mason finished with a team-high 10 points. Jakayln Brown had nine points and Tatiana Mason finished with seven. The win snaps the Arcs’ 22-game winning streak, but Winters has high hopes for a team graduating just two seniors. “I’m proud of our girls,” Winters said. “I’m happy to be a part of what we do … It hurts but they had an answer for everything we did.”