ST. CLAIRSVILLE — The Cameron Dragons’ stretch of OVAC dominance will have a chance to continue beyond a full class-length on Saturday when the two-seed Dragons go for their fifth-straight 1A conference championship on Thursday against the top-seeded Frontier Cougars.

The matchup, set for 2 p.m. in the tournament’s return to the ECO Center, is between two teams each with a chip on their shoulder.

Frontier hopes to ascend to the mountaintop after falling in the championship in the recent past; Cameron’s new-look team hopes to prove themselves after having the torch passed to them from a historic senior class.

“They are really excited about it,” Cameron head coach Holly Pettit said of her team. “They know there’s a chance it could be our fifth consecutive OVAC championship. Us going in as the two seed, I think it has us fired up a little bit, wanting it a little bit more. This group that I have this year, they almost feel like they have something to prove because they’d been in the shadows of my seniors who graduated last year. They want to get out and play and show everybody how good they are.”

“They’re going for their fifth-straight title and coach Holly Pettit has done a really nice job over there,” Frontier head coach Mike Cisler said. “From what I’ve seen of them, they’re a pretty nice team, guard-oriented, a very well-coached team. We’ve got our work cut out for us. We met two years ago. It should be a good matchup, we’re looking forward to it.”

The Dragons brought up a whole new core this year, surrounding senior Maci Neely, the team’s leading scorer and rebounder at 16.9 points per game and 7.2 rebounds per game. Kendra Thomas and Macey Bertram both average over six points per game, Devan Schrack is the team’s second-leading rebounder with 6.7 caroms per, and Shaleigh Littleton averages five-and-five for the Dragons.

“We’re starting to play better each game,” Pettit said. “You don’t want to peak at the beginning of the season. My girls are right on track to be performing at their best at the right time. I think there’s not as much pressure on the girls this year and that’s letting them play a little more relaxed. Right now, we’re 10-3, which is a great record. Our only losses are to Union Local and Linsly. We’re right where we need to be.”

Frontier is an ascending team of underclassmen who are eager to go for the gold.

“We’ve got a really young team,” Cisler said. “I’ve got one senior and the rest are juniors and sophomores, and one freshman. They’re pretty excited, this was one of our goals this year, to get to the title game. We’ve been able to achieve that and it’s a good confidence-booster for them.”

“Being a young team, we knew going in there were going to be peaks and valleys this year. The last couple games, we’re starting to go up toward the peak. We’re led by juniors Anna Bowersock and Kelsey Dye. They both do a really nice job of getting to the rack and finishing.”

Bowersock averages 13.8 and Dye averages 12.3 as the team’s top scorers. Both average close to seven rebounds a game as well.

Willow Smitley averages a tick below 10 points and seven rebounds for the Cougars. Cisler also pointed out the play of Laney Cisler and Keeley Barrows, who he said was his team’s defensive stopper.

“We know that they’re quick, that they get to the basket really well, they play really well as a team and they have a couple girls who make things flow real easy,” Pettit said of Frontier. “We know we’re going to have a really tough game ahead of us, we’re going to have to play really well defensively and win the rebounding battle for sure.”

Cameron and Frontier’s 1A championship rumble sits in-between the 5A game of Steubenville vs. Morgantown and 2A game of River vs. Steubenville Catholic.