Chris Savage believes teams don't walk toward a league championship, they sprint.

Trailing Hilliard Davidson 19-12 with 4 minutes, 23 seconds left in the second quarter last Friday, the normally-reserved coach of the Upper Arlington High School girls basketball team called a timeout to make sure his team got that message.

After the timeout, junior Sarah Hobbs hit two 3-pointers to spark an 11-4 UA run. That run pushed the Bears to a 53-47 win over the Wildcats and outright possession of the OCC-Central Division championship.

With the win, UA improved to 17-1 overall and secured its first league championship since the 2003-04 season with a 13-1 league record. The Bears still have a game remaining with Westland on Saturday, but hold a two-game lead over Davidson, 10-3 in the OCC after losses to UA and Hilliard Darby (41-35 on Feb. 10).

"This means so much," said Hobbs, who finished with 17 points. "We were not playing as hard as we usually do. We needed something to get us back into the game."

That something was a tirade by Savage, who emphatically told his team they were "jogging on offense and jogging on defense."

UA hadn't played since a 48-31win over Central Crossing on Feb. 2 and then had to sit through a freshman game, a junior varsity game that was delayed by an injury and "Senior Night" ceremonies. Senior Jane Windler, who finished with 12 points and 11 rebounds, said Savage's pep talk was a wake-up call.

"(Savage) doesn't get like that very often, but we needed it," Windler said. "Sitting on the bench, you could see that we were not putting in the effort. (We) were ready to go after that."

Clinching the league championship was the perfect sendoff for the Division I district tournament. The third-seeded Bears play Marion-Franklin in the first round of the tournament at 6:15 p.m. today at Hilliard Davidson.

The winner plays Westland at 6:15 p.m. Wednesday at Hamilton Township. With a first-round win, UA, which beat the Cougars 68-40 on Jan. 5, could face Westland twice in four days. The Feb. 5 showdown between the two teams was canceled because of bad weather.