In 2011, after being in the Kansas state basketball tournament 29 times, a remarkable thing occurred: The Bishop Miege girls finished the season on the outside looking in. In 2012, it happened again.

On Friday night in a substate championship game at their home gym, the Stags brought a note of normalcy back to Class 5A, beating Blue Valley Southwest 59-35.

Next week, Miege will set out for Topeka and the chance to claim its 17th state title in girls basketball.

Friday’s game was a classic tale of two halves.

The Stags were clinging to a 27-25 advantage at halftime when a basket by senior Lexi Hughes, two free throws by senior Sydney Vaughn and a short shot by sophomore Kelsey Wolf made it 33-25 with 5:40 left in the third quarter.

The Timberwolves (14-8) never got any closer.

“We weren’t very patient on offense,” BV Southwest coach Rick Rhoades said. “They just outplayed us in the second half.”

The Stags (17-5) connected on nine-of-12 from the floor in the second half and were 13-of-14 at the free throw line.

“We just started playing and we finally started hitting the good shots,” Stags coach Terry English said. “We didn’t give up the inside shots in the second half.”

Miege led 39-31 at the end of the third quarter and put the game out of reach by outscoring the Timberwolves 13-2 in the first six minutes of the fourth period.

“We aren’t very tall and lland Shurn (5-10 senior) played well inside for us.” English said. “This was one of her best games.”

She was matched against BV Southwest’s 6-1 senior Hunter Thomas. Shurn ended the game with 10 points and a game-high nine rebounds.

BV Southwest freshman Rilynne Like had 11 first half points, but was held scoreless in the second half.

“We just did a better job on her in the second half,” English said.

Hughes was the leading scorer in the game with 14 points. The 5-7 senior was two-for-three from the field with a three-pointer in the second half. She was a perfect six-of-six from the free throw line in the fourth quarter.

Junior Lexie Villegas and senior Sydney Vaughn had eight points each in the game for the Stags.

BV Southwest was just four-of-24 from the field in the second half and two-of-six at the free throw line.

The Stags out-rebounded the Timberwolves 24-14.

The two teams split their two regular season East Kansas League game. BV Southwest won the first game 53-48 in overtime and the Stags won the second game 54-50.