AUSTIN — Dominated by youth and on the biggest stage in the state for girls high school basketball, Smyer sure acted like it belonged.

The 10th-ranked Lady Cats got off to the best start imaginable and never let up, riding the hot hand of sophomore forward Haley Fowler early and the shooting from its guards late to rout Louise, 76-34, in the Class 1A Division I state semifinals Thursday morning at the Frank Erwin Center in Austin.

Smyer's Marissa Garcia(22) and Nikki Gholson pressure Louise's Nicole Roades during their Class 1A Division 1 State semi-final game on Thursday at the Frank Erwin Center in Austin. (Zach Long)

Smyer's Haley Fowler works around Louise's Amber Bain during their Class 1A Division 1 State semi-final game on Thursday at the Frank Erwin Center in Austin. (Zach Long)

Smyer's Marissa Garcia(22), Haley Fowler(23) and Nikki Gholson(25) enjoy the final moments of their win over Louise during their Class 1A Division 1 State semi-final game on Thursday at the Frank Erwin Center in Austin. (Zach Long)

Smyer's Haley Fowler works upcourt ahead of Louise's Kelsi Kutac during their Class 1A Division 1 State semi-final game on Thursday at the Frank Erwin Center in Austin. (Zach Long)

“We knew we just had to play basketball,” senior guard Jesse Daniel said. “We think we’re a pretty good basketball team and I think we’ve proven that.”

The Lady Cats (35-3) certainly did that, and by doing so, will appear in the state title game for the first time in school history against Martin’s Mill (33-4) at 8:30 a.m. Saturday morning.

Able to stop some aspects of the Lady Cats offense at times, but unable to stop all of them, Louise (26-7) was simply out matched. Fowler scored 25 points through 21/2 quarters, and when the Lady Hornets concentrated their defense on her, that’s when the Lady Cats started draining the 3-pointer.

Freshman Jordan Locke hit four from beyond the arc as part of her 18 points, and sophomore Nikki Gholson had three more as Smyer was 9 for 22 from 3-point range. Freshman center Kennedy Farr took over in the fourth quarter, eight of her 15 points in the final five minutes of the game.

As a team, the Lady Cats shot a whopping 53.4 percent (31 of 58) from the field.

“I thought we played extremely well,” Smyer head coach Leland Bearden said. “It’s been our plan all year long to go inside out first, but they covered up our shooters, so we had one on one down on the blocks. They tried to take away our shooters and had a chaser on Jesse, and I think that really opened it up inside for Haley. The girls executed it perfectly and did what we wanted to do.”

Fowler was dominant early. She scored Smyer’s first 10 points of the game – all on left-handed layups – and had 17 by the end of the first quarter and 23 at halftime.

“We have great shooters, so we were just able to open it up inside and I took advantage of it,” said Fowler, who also had seven rebounds and three steals. “Our guards, they can handle the ball really well and see the court really well, and they just got it to me.”

And when Louise adjusted and packed the defense inside, that left Smyer’s outstanding guards open.

Gholson and Locke opened the second half hitting 3-poitners 25 seconds apart, and Locke would add another just under a minute later to put the Lady Cats up 39-16. Daniel then capped an 18-2 run to open the second half with her only trey, essentially putting the game away at 48-16 with 3:33 left in the third quarter.

“We kind of had to pick our poison defensively,” Louise coach Bryan Branch said. ‘We knew (Fowler) was a super stud and was really, really good. So we decided to try and pressure the guards and force some turnovers in that direction, and really play a style of defense we normally don’t play and spread it out. But they were still able to get her the ball and she was able to convert on the inside.”

“So we decided to sink inside and help out on the post players, and they started knocking down the 3-pointers. They’re a very fundamental basketball team, and we’re limited offensively in what we can do. We win by being aggressive and athletic, and a good, fundamental basketball team nine times out of 10 will beat that.”

Not only were the Lady Cats impressive offensively, but did the job defensively as well. Louise shot just 24.4 percent (11 of 45) for the game and just 15.8 percent (3 of 19) in the first half. The Lady Hornets also hit just one of 15 3-point attempts.

Louise had 21 unforced turnovers in the game, and Smyer had 19 steals.

“I thought our kids did a good job on the press,” Bearden said, “not so much that we were getting steals but just forcing turnovers. Our defense has been carrying us the last two or three games and we did an exceptional job on the boards limiting them to one and out.”

And because of that, the Lady Cats are not one and out in Austin.

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CLASS 1A DIVISION I STATE SEMIFINAL

At The Frank Erwin Special Events Center, Austin

SMYER 76, LOUISE 34

LOUISE – Brown 7-18 2-6 16, Bain 2-4 5-8 9, Kotulek 0-4 2-4 2, Ka. Kutac 1-12 0-0 2, K. Machicek 1-5 2-2 5, Ke. Kutac 0-0 0-0 0, Roades 0-2 0-2 0, Wagner 0-0 0-0 0, Hlavaty 0-0 0-0 0, Townsend 0-0 0-0 0, S. Machicek 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 11-45 11-22 34.

SMYER – Locke 7-17 0-1 18, Daniel 1-3 0-0 3, Garcia 1-4 0-0 2, Fowler 12-17 1-1 25, Gholson 3-6 0-0 9, Seigman 0-0 0-0 0, Robertson 1-1 0-0 3, Hernandez 0-1 1-3 1, Alexander 0-0 0-0 0, Farr 6-9 3-4 15, Burnam 0-0 0-0 0, Escobedo 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 31-58 5-9 76.

Louise 8 6 4 16 — 34

Smyer 21 9 26 20 — 76

3-point goals: Louise 1-15 (K. Machicek 1-4, Kotulek 0-2, Roades 0-2, Kutac 0-7); Smyer 9-22 (Locke 4-9, Gholson 3-6, Robertson 1-1, Daniel 1-3, Fowler 0-1, Garcia 0-2). Rebounds: Louise 31 (Brown 10, Bain 11); Smyer 34 (Locke 8). Assists: Louise 7 (Kutac 2); Smyer 21 (Garcia 6). Steals: Louise 7 (Bain 4); Smyer 19 (Locke 4). Blocked shots: Smyer 7 (Farr 4). Total fouls: Louise 10, Smyer 17. Fouled out: Smyer, Farr. Technical fouls: None. Records: Louise 26-7; Smyer 35-3