Staff photo / Dan Hiner. Poland’s Briella Rowe (5) goes up for a shot during the third quarter of Saturday’s Division V district final against Chippewa at Woodridge High School.

PENINSULA — Admittedly, Poland girls basketball coach Nick Blanch thought the 2025-26 season was going to be a bit of a rebuilding year.

The Bulldogs had a young core that needed experience, and it was going to take time for everything to gel. But Blanch still thought his girls could make a run at the end of the year.

Despite the youth, the Bulldogs got to the Division V, Northeast 1 district final. But they fell 52-41 to Chippewa on Saturday at Woodridge High School.

“They came to work every day, they worked extremely hard. We never had a losing mentality,” Blanch said. “Our thing was, if we’re losing a game, it’s because we can look ourselves in the mirror, know we gave it everything we had, we just fell short. It’s not because we rolled over and played dead for anybody on the schedule.”

Both teams came out energized, diving for loose balls and grabbing offensive rebounds. The Chipps held a 13-10 lead through the first eight minutes.

Then some of that experience started to show up in the second quarter.

The Chipps (17-8) started pulling down offensive rebounds and coming away with steals. They grew their lead to 24-15 with 3:10 left in the half, and by the break, they led 29-16.

“You got a veteran team over there, and another thing was their guards are 5-10, 5-9, 5-8. Our guards are not,” Blanch said. “They have that advantage, so we had to fix some things defensively a little bit in order to avoid getting posted up on throughout the game and giving up easy buckets.”

Poland (17-8) had a little more success scoring-wise in the third. However, the Chipps took advantage of Bulldog defensive breakdowns and led 42-29 heading into the fourth.

An Isabel Greco 3-pointer cut the lead to single digits, 42-34, with 6:21 remaining. But that was as close as the Bulldogs would get.

The Chipps continued to convert buckets inside, and they worked a minute off the clock with just over two minutes to play to put Poland’s comeback bid out of reach.

“We hung with them to the very end,” Blanch said. “We had a bad second quarter, that’s the difference in the basketball game. The rest of the game, we did what we were supposed to. Coulda, woulda, shoulda, but I’m proud of what we did.”

Poland had trouble containing Delaney Marshall, who finished with a game-high 20 points for the Chipps.

Briella Rowe led the Bulldogs with 11 points. Brooklyn Kosco had 10, and Greco finished with nine.

The Bulldogs have most of their starting five returning next year. The only senior that started on Saturday was Leanna Boccieri.

There were three other seniors in addition to Boccieri, including Elliana Thompson, Lauren Coss and Lily McDonald.

“They did everything I asked them to the best of their abilities,” Blanch said. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of. We’re very proud to be district runner-up, and we’re looking forward to coming back here real soon.”