The Armada Tigers and Yale Bulldogs split their regular season series one game apiece, splitting the Blue Water Area Conference girls championship.

On Monday, they met one more time at Croswell-Lexington with a spot in the Division 2 regional championship round on the line — and after Armada took a 27-25 lead into halftime, they managed just 16 more points as Yale’s Sadie Dykstra exploded for 32, leading the Bulldogs to a 52-41 victory.

Armada’s offense fell flat in the second half, shooting 5-for-23 from the field.

“At the end of the day, that was the difference,” said Armada head coach Joe McDevitt. “The ball just didn’t drop.”

Sophomore Valeria Ricossa led the Tigers with 20 points. Seniors Ashlyn Upton and Claire Sniesak had nine and eight points, respectively.

They’re part of a class including Ellie Ryzyi, Brooklyn Khon, Maddie Genereaux and Emily Brown that brought back-to-back district titles and a BWAC title to Armada, including the first district crown in 42 years.

“This group has created a culture, an environment where there’s a standard of how we work, how we do things, how we behave,” McDevitt said of the seniors.

“You know, what practice looks like, what the locker room looks like, just an expectation. Last year was the district, for the first time in 42 years. This group, you know, knowing that we weren’t going to be sneaking up on people like we did — like we felt like we did a bit early last year — they came to play. We got everyone’s best effort every single night, and this group handled that, accepted that challenge and sent us home happy 19 times this year.”

McDevitt hopes that, like this year’s seniors learned from last year’s, the current junior class can take a page out of their book to continue building the Armada girls basketball program.

“Knowing that if you want to see the floor, want to compete, they got a front row seat watching the senior class lead them,” McDevitt said. “So there’s some big shoes to fill. There’s no doubt about it. But I know the season just ended, but you know, we’re looking forward to next year already. We’re going to try to move this thing, like, one step further, one step at a time. We say 1% — we try to get 1% better every single day.”

The Tigers finished the season with a 19-4 record.