Not only has the Dublin Scioto High School girls basketball team advanced to a Division I district final for the first time, the Irish can settle a score in the contest.

Second-seeded Scioto's opponent for the district final at 2 p.m. Saturday at Olentangy Liberty is seventh-seeded Pickerington North, which beat the Irish 68-35 in a district semifinal last year.

"It's a pretty good script," said coach Todd Hardesty, whose team improved to 21-2 with a 44-39 win last Monday over 10th-seeded Westerville North in a district semifinal. "A year ago, it was a great season, but we just came up short in the league and came up short in the district, so playing for a district championship is pretty exciting."

Scioto, which shared the OCC-Cardinal Division championship with Pickerington Central, will be meeting a much different North team this time. The Panthers graduated a strong senior class that included three players who signed with Division I college programs.

Still, North likely raised some eyebrows with a 49-43 win last Monday over fourth-seeded Dublin Coffman, which finished at 20-3 and established a program record for victories in a season.

"Our whole team's different so I'm just glad we've gotten this far," Pickerington North coach Dave Butcher said. "It's been an interesting year. At one time, I think, we were 7-4, and now we're sitting here at 18-5 so we've been playing some pretty good basketball the last two months."

North is led by junior forward Megan Askew (5-foot-11), who averages 13.2 points. Junior Lauren Potts has scored in double figures in each of the last 11 games.

"We're going to have to bring it at them because they're a really good team," said forward Emma Culp, who led the Irish with 14 points last Monday. "We're going to have to work pretty hard."

The winner Saturday will play in a regional semifinal Tuesday at Otterbein College against Cincinnati Princeton or Centerville.

Princeton is the top seed in its district and has lived up to the billing. The Vikings defeated Cincinnati Mount Healthy 74-42 on Feb. 16, Cincinnati Aiken 89-6 on Feb. 22 and Cincinnati Northwest 81-41 last Saturday to improve to 22-0 and advance to a district final.

Princeton is ranked first in the state poll and ninth by USA Today. The Vikings are led by seniors Lesslee Mason-Cox (16.1 points through 19 games) and Ashlee Bridge (15.4), who have signed with Ohio State and Vanderbilt, respectively.

Centerville improved to 19-3 after beating Troy 42-24 last Saturday. The Elks are led by 5-10 sophomore Abby Glover. She is one of six players on Centerville's 12-player roster at least 5-10, helping the Elks' defense limit opponents to 32.2 points a game.

Hardesty knows it's going to take a better effort to defeat Pickerington North after the Warriors held his team to one of its lowest offensive outputs of the season. Leading scorer Crystal Murdaugh was limited to 13 points, but she got plenty of support from her teammates.

Westerville North had a 34-33 lead midway through the fourth quarter when Murdaugh headed for the bench in foul trouble.

That's when junior forward Chelsea Albert hit a 3-pointer and Culp scored the next three field goals during the 9-0 run.

"Everyone knows Crystal is the dominant player, but we all worked really hard and tried to stay focused," Culp said.

"We all wanted this game so bad."

Scioto made a similar run at the end of the half to take a 22-19 lead as Murdaugh scored four of the last six points.

"The last two to three minutes of both halves we showed our poise and looked like a veteran team," Hardesty said. "We made better decisions down the stretch, and I think that was important, too."

The Warriors, who finished 14-9, cut Scioto's lead to 31-30 at the end of the third quarter. Then, with about seven minutes left, North guard Jessica Williams, who scored 15 points, hit two free throws to help her team regain the lead.

"Possession basketball is a big thing for us," Hardesty said. "You can not get caught up in those moments. You have to weather storms. It's a classic one in sports clichÈs, but in a game like this you know that's going to happen."