Staff photo / Brian Yauger. Warren JFK junior Didi Ryan drives to the basket while being defended by Chalker’s Riley Ashcraft on Saturday at Mineral Ridge.

MINERAL RIDGE — Saturday’s district title game was not a home game for Warren JFK. But for Eagles senior Gianna Pompelia, the Mineral Ridge gym may as well be her home court.

A year after her monster 43-point outing to give Kennedy its first girls basketball district title, Pompelia did it again. This time, the senior scored 33 to help the Eagles win their second straight district championship, downing Chalker 71-14.

A big difference for JFK this year is the return of Didi Ryan. The Eagles were without their star for the duration of last season’s tournament, but this season is a different story.

While not at full-strength, Ryan was still a major factor against the Wildcats. Despite not feeling well, Ryan scored 22 points on Saturday.

“She’s sick as a dog today, so she’s at about 50%,” Morgan said. “Obviously she’s not going to miss this game. She missed that last year. I told her, ‘Just do what you can do.'”

Last season, the Eagles needed Pompelia to take over the game if they wanted to keep their season alive. With Ryan back, that dynamic changes.

“Didi changes the parameters of what we do,” Morgan said. “Last year. It was a dog fight for us to get through the tournament, to get to this point. I think we were pretty content on making it to this point and winning. I think now for them, it’s like, ‘Wait a minute. We got kind of short-changed last year. Let’s see what we can do with our general.’

“(Ryan’s return) makes it even tougher for teams to guard us. If you’ve got to recognize where (Pompelia) is and you got to find Ryan, that dynamic makes it so hard to guard us.”

While Ryan and Pompelia get most of the attention, Morgan knows it’s going to take more than the two of them if Kennedy wants to keep their season going.

It only gets tougher from here, so the seven-deep Eagles will be relying on more points from the rest of their lineup.

“I want (everyone on the roster) to have that initiative,” Morgan said. “It’s not about those two scoring. If you’re open, you need to be able to shoot. We’ve seen some triangle-and-two (defenses) where these kids have had to score. We played Gilmour, and I’m glad we saw it, because they had to score. Hannah Myers had 15 in a game like that. Ryley Lawrence had 12 points. That’s what I want. I want five kids that can score. Two, that’s fine, but I need five. If you think you’re going to go past this point, I need everybody to be able to score.”

Chalker finishes the season with a 17-7 record and its first district final appearance since 2001.

“I’m super proud of our community and our school and our team,” Wildcats coach Rich Hudak said. “Just super proud of them, and hopefully we can carry this on and it doesn’t take another 25 years to get here.”

While the basketball season is over for the Wildcats, this group’s time together is continuing on. Each player on Chalker’s roster, as well as coach Hudak, is also a part of the school’s softball program. So while one chapter ends, the other is just beginning.

“They love each other. They love to be around each other. It makes my job a lot easier,” Hudak said. “They know they get to continue that. It’s a different sport, but they get to continue that (group cohesion). They’re sad, but it gives them a little bit of some happiness there too, because they know that (they get to stay together).”

Kennedy advances to the Division VII, Region 25 semifinals where it’ll take on Maplewood on Thursday at 8 p.m at Massillon Perry.