From an offensive perspective, Thursday night’s Providence Catholic regional final wasn’t the prettiest contest. That was true not just of eighth seeded Oak Forest, but also the host Celtics, normally a high scoring team.

When a game that wasn’t pretty offensively still results in a 28-point victory, that says something about how dominant the Celtic defense was.

Providence Catholic dominated all aspects of the game in the first period before a challenging second period and a rough offensive stretch in the third. The defense was stupendous virtually all night and the offense picked up in the final frame to give the Celtics a 46-18 victory over the Bengals. Providence is the regional champ and will take on Thornton Fractional North in the Hillcrest girls basketball sectional semifinals next.

Providence Catholic (29-4) was virtually flawless on defense, though the offense will be looking to improve from its mid-game slump. The Celtics went ice cold in the final four minutes of the opening half and stayed that way the first four minutes of the second.

Again, though, the headline of the night was on defense. Coach Eileen Copenhaver raved about her team’s effort on that end of the court after holding Oak Forest to no field goals for the first 10 minutes of the game and just three points in the entire second half.

She also credited the Bengals for putting up a solid effort on defense themselves.

“Oak Forest has a lot of skill,” Copenhaver said. “Their coaches do a great job and the kids gave us everything they had. I’m very happy with the way our kids responded after the second and third period. We basically didn’t let them score in the second half which was the difference. We settled down and got in a rhythm.”

If the Celtics can play like they did in the opening eight minutes, they won’t have a problem in the sectional tournament. They held the Bengals to just two points in the period, both of which came on a pair of free throws with a minute left by Madilyn Martinez. It was 13-2 after one.

Oak Forest didn’t earn their first shot from the field until 5:55 remained in the second. At that point they were still down 18-5, but things began to change from there. The Bengal defense held the Celtics to just five points the rest of the half while the offense scored another 10, including a buzzer beating layup by Rebecca Yerkes to trim the deficit to 23-15.

The Bengals got within 23-17 before a triple by Eilish Raines returned it to nine for Providence two minutes into the third. The Celtics didn’t score again for two minutes, but Oak Forest didn’t score again the entire period. The Celtics stretched their advantage to 31-17 entering the last stage of the game.

The Celtics ended the game just like they started it. Aside from a free throw early in the fourth, Oak Forest didn’t add a point to the board while the Celtic offense had its best stretch of the evening. The result? A regional championship trophy.

“It’s great,” Raines said. “This is my fourth year in a row winning a regional title and I couldn’t be happier. I did it with the best team I could ask for so this is great.”

Landrie Callahan led all scorers with 13.

Providence will travel to Hillcrest on Tuesday for a 6 p.m. date with TF North, the fourth seed of the sectional. The winner will play in the sectional final two days later against either second seeded Hillcrest or sixth seeded Marian Catholic. In order to keep winning in the playoff, the Celtics believe they just have to stick to what’s worked well for them all year.

“I think if we just play our best like we have all season we’ll be alright,” sophomore Kennedy Kotowski said. “We just need to keep pushing ourselves and working as a team.”