EAST LANSING >> In a rematch of last year’s semifinal, Ypsilanti Arbor Prep denied Rochester Hills Lutheran Northwest Saturday by winning 32-21 to give the Gators their second Division 3 state championship in a row.

Following a first period in which the Crusaders hit three of 10 shots from the field and matched Arbor Prep’s eight points, Lutheran Northwest made 1-of-14 field-goal attempts in the second and third quarters combined, during which the Gators outscored the Crusaders 14-5.

“Arbor Prep is a good team, we just struggled to get into what we like to do and get the tempo (to) what we like,” Lutheran Northwest head coach Jimmy Mehlberg said. “Credit to them for taking us out of what we like to do … (When) we got out in transition, we struggled to get buckets and missed a couple easy ones. They slowed us down and took us out of that.

In a game where it felt like 30 points would be enough to win, getting 10% of that on one shot can feel big, and it was in the case of Arbor Prep senior Eliza Bush, the Gators’ lone returning starter from last year’s championship side.

With the Crusaders trailing just 13-12 after Charlotte Gramzow’s bucket to open the scoring in the second half, Bush knocked down a 3-pointer 1:04 into the third quarter, then hit another on her next attempt less than a minute-and-a-half later.

Neither team had led by anymore than three points up until Bush’s first triple, but two effectively broke the game open.

“In our zone offense, looking to the middle, Angela (Meggisson) is our huge threat, so she’s got people doubling, tripling, (and she’s) looking for the kickouts, and then off offensive rebounds, Eliza does a great job of getting to the open spot, and we’re finding it,” Arbor Prep head coach Scott Stine said. “That’s what she does. As a freshman, she hit a huge three for us in the state championship game. She hit them Thursday and today, but they were big.”

Other than a free throw by Gramzow, her layup 40 seconds in represented the only scoring for Lutheran Northwest in the entire third quarter. The Crusaders missed eight shots and committed four turnovers from there until the start of the fourth.

Trailing by nine to begin the final period, Lutheran Northwest cut that down to six on Addie Troska’s layup with 4:31 left. But the Crusaders went cold again after that. Jayala Banks’ free throws with 3:56 left restored the lead to eight, Meggisson scored with a little under two minutes remaining and extended it to 10, and Jourdin Lewis hit a 3-pointer in front of the Gators’ bench with 50 seconds to go, which unofficially got Arbor Prep’s championship party started.

Senior Morgan Griswold hit Lutheran Northwest’s first 3-pointer with 39 seconds left in the game after the Crusaders had missed their first 11.

“We’re not a big three-point shooting team,” Mehlberg said. “We will shoot six or seven a game. I think they were packing it in pretty good, and we were just too far away from the basket. The biggest thing, we were seeing that NCAA three-point line and we just couldn’t adapt to get a little bit closer. But they played well. They did what they wanted to do, take our tempo away and make us shoot.”

Troska led Lutheran Northwest (21-7) with eight points. Griswold had six points and rebounds each, while junior forward Charlotte Gramzow ended with a handful of points and seven boards. Paige Macavage added two points to round out the Crusaders’ scoring.

Meggison finished with 11 points and four steals for the Gators (17-12). Bush ended with 10 points and Lewis chipped in seven for the defending champs, who beat the Crusaders 52-30 when they met in the Final Four last season.

Griswold, Ashley Cadicamo and Bella Truskowski will be the lone players to graduate from this year’s team that was even younger when it made last year’s unexpected run to the Breslin Center.

“I feel like this whole opportunity, this whole experience the last two years has really broadened my horizons that, we’re able to do tough things, we have the ability, and we were made to be here,” Cadicamo said. “Even though we came up short, I’m still so incredibly proud of every single girl on our team, because we were able to do something that no one has ever been able to do in our school’s history.

“Yeah, it sucks that we lost, it really does, but we went out with a bang and made it as far as we could. And like I said, I could not be more proud of every single girl on our team, because I know we worked so hard to get to where we are.”