Grace Koehler knew this moment would come, but that didn’t mean she was ready for it.

But the Section 9 champion Huskies’ best since season since 2018 came to a screeching halt on March 5 when they fell, 46-21, to the Section 1 champion Putnam Valley Tigers in the New York State Public High School Athletic Association Class B girls’ basketball subregional at Yorktown High School.

“I just can’t believe it’s over,” said Koehler, one of the Huskies’ four seniors. “I knew this day would come, but I didn’t realize it would be now.”

The Huskies stayed with the Tigers for most of the first half, and the game was deadlocked, 17-17, with 1:03 remaining in the second quarter.

The Tigers got two 3-pointers in the final minute of the first half from Nai Torres to take a 23-17 lead at the half.

“Those two 3s were something we work on and try to stop,” Highland coach Michael Geller said. “We slipped up on those two things getting through a screen, and we let the girl go right into the lane and got a rhythm 3. (Torres) is a nice player, and she knocked them down.”

Things may not have been so bad at halftime, but they got worse in the second half as the Tigers hung a goose egg on the Huskies, while they put up 10 points to take a 33-17 lead into the fourth quarter.

The Huskies’ last score of the second quarter came on a free throw by Logan VanZandt with 1:03 remaining in the second quarter that tied the game at 17-17. They didn’t score again until Danica Valente hit a layup with 5:14 remaining in the game.

By that time, the Tigers led the game, 46-19.

“(Putman Valley) played some hard-nosed defense, nothing we haven’t seen this year,” Geller said. “It was just a little indecisiveness with driving vs. shooting, and then you put some turnovers with that, and it hurts us a little bit. I thought we played hard the whole game.”

No matter the outcome of the game, the Huskies accomplished what they set out to do this season. They won their second straight Mid Hudson Athletic League Division III championship, advancing to the MHAL finals, where they lost to eventual Section 9 Class AAA champion Our Lady of Lourdes.

Then, they won two Section 9 tournament games to win their first championship.

“(This team) has meant everything,” Koehler said as she fought through tears.

“All my time has been put toward this team since November, even over the summer with our summer and fall leagues. It means everything.”

That’s a long way from the team that struggled to find wins after the 2018 season, and made steady progress over the past four seasons, even as the world was moving on from a global pandemic.

“During COVID, I really wanted to challenge myself to coach a new sport that I can play, but never really coached a lot,” Geller said. “I think that in four years, we’ve really flipped the script, and now we’re a force to be reckoned with in Section 9, and I think that can happen for years to come.”