AKRON — Home sweet home was just a little sweeter for the Tippecanoe Valley girls basketball community Saturday night. The tight-knit fan base was able to come out and watch its beloved girls basketball team do what it does best, win, on its home court.

The No. 4 ranked Lady Vikings closed out a masterful sectional run with a 54-31 victory over Fairfield in the IHSAA Class 3A Sectional Championship game.

“I don’t know who used to use that term, ‘spurtability’, but we’ve got it,” quipped Valley head coach Chris Kindig. “We had a couple of big spurts tonight and that really helped. We’re able to do that when we’ve got our outside shooters hitting and Anne (Secrest) getting her looks inside.”

Big scoring runs were a huge part of Valley’s path to victory over the Falcons. The biggest of these runs came in the third quarter.

After playing a tightly contest first half, which left Valley with a 23-14 lead, Fairfield came out in the second half determined to pull the upset. The Falcons cut Valley’s lead down to eight points, 30-22, around the midway point of the third quarter. The Vikings responded in a way that only championship teams can.

Valley went on a 13-0 run fueled by everything from gutsy moves in the paint, timely shots from deep and tenacious play on defense. For the last three and half minutes of the frame the Vikings were unstoppable. The run felt quick to those in the stands as suddenly the pace changed from stalling to quick points in transition. But the suddenly swift slicing of the Valley offense was also the slow knife cutting deep into Fairfield’s title hopes. The game hadn’t ended, but it was over.

Secrest, who had a slow start offensively Friday night, was hitting on all cylinders in the title game. The junior earned a double-double by leading all players with 21 points 10 rebounds and five assists to boot. If that wasn’t enough, Secrest also had an eye-popping five blocks. Valley had eight blocked shots as a team. When Secrest wasn’t doing damage inside, it was Meredith Brouyette and Addy Miller hitting from the outside.

Brouyette hit 4-5 three-pointers and finished the night with 16 points. Miller hit three of her own and finished with 10 points. Miller also tied for the team lead with Sophie Bussard with three steals.

Valley continued to hold strong in the fourth quarter. The game was well in hand, as could be seen by the actions of the student section. The cheer block had gone from celebrating every point, in what was once a competitive game, to finding ways to entertain itself. Those vices included crowd surfing, among other things. But that was what made the moment unique. Last season the Vikings were on cloud nine with their sectional title, this season the team wants and expects more. This was just the first part of a greater mission. The culture has changed.

“They’re expecting bigger things,” Kindig said of his team and the Valley community. “A lot of people didn’t expect to get where we got last year. Internally we knew we had that kind of talent, it was just about making it happen. The expectations have changed this year. They’ve been high all year. But we’ve said all season that we’d rather have high expectations than low expectations.”

The Lady Vikes have walked around all year with targets on their backs, but it hasn’t changed their approach to games. Senior Morgan Brazo, the team’s most charismatic player, is enjoying every step of the ride.

“I think defending a title, no matter what, puts a lot of pressure on your back,” Brazo began, “that’s what we’ve dealt with all year. Everyone knows we went to state and everyone has been aiming at us all year. I think we’ve handled it really well. I don’t think we played any different trying to defend the sectional title. We just came out and played our game at our house.”

Valley (24-1) now turns its attention to the Columbia City Regional where it will face Fort Wayne Concordia (14-11) in the second semi-final next Saturday. Concordia beat Dwenger in overtime to win the sectional at Garrett. The winner of that game will play the winner of the day’s first semi-final between No. 5 Norwell (23-2) and No. 2 Heritage Christian (22-4).