WIESBADEN, Germany - The Wiesbaden Warriors are the queens of DODDS-Europe Division I girls basketball.

With a 33-26 victory over Ramstein on Saturday, Wiesbaden won its second straight championship. It was the Warriors’ third straight appearance in the finals and third championship in five years.

Forward Catherine Klein was the star of Saturday’s finale, scoring 12 points and shooting 89 percent from the free throw line. She also epitomized the concept of “leaving it all on the court,” throwing herself into every play, attacking every possession and not allowing a single drive to pass by her successfully.

“Everybody on this team has been working so hard for this championship since tryouts,” she said. “I put 100 percent on the court and that’s all I could do.”

She had a little help in the form of a fantastic shooting performance from Rebecca Russell, who dropped three picture perfect three-pointers before Ramstein’s defense wised up. But by then the damage was already done.

“There was a lot of times they were face guarding,” she said. “We just found the spots in the defense that broke down and we took advantage of it.”

The usual prolific Cierra Martin had an off night, scoring only two off of a couple of free throws. Some might be disappointed by that type of performance, but as Martin said “It doesn’t matter. We won.”

“What happens is they take a cog of the game and everybody else picks it up,” explained Warrior coach Jim Campbell. “We weren’t especially good on offense tonight, but our defense limited their scoring.”

Wiesbaden’s stingy defense held the Royals to just seven points in the first half. Klein was a large part of that, as was Rosetta Gray, who had three steals and four rebounds. Nearly every Warrior with any significant playing time had some defensive stat with their name.

“You wouldn’t get the points we got if you didn’t have the defense on the other end,” Russell said.

Ramstein managed to mount a decent comeback in the third and fourth quarters. Desiree Palacios lead her team in scoring with eight points - six in the second half.

It wasn’t their best game of basketball, but Palacios said it was still a marked improvement from last year, when the Royals didn’t even make top three.

“We came a long way from last year to this year,” she added. “Our team worked great together all year and we really have come a long way.”

Ramstein just couldn’t recover for lack of production in the first half.

“Shots just didn’t go our way tonight,” Ramstein coach Nathan Brewster said. “We came back and made a run at it. We just fell short. I’m just really proud of their accomplishments this season. Just to be here was a thrill and they worked hard to get here.”

A thrill, but obviously not the big thrill of victory. That belongs to Campbell and his newly formed Warrior dynasty.

“The Warriors have been to the championships four out of the past six years,” he said. “And it never gets old.”

darnell.michael@stripes.com

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