Elida, LCC advance to Tip-Off title game

ELIDA - The season was young and so were a lot of the players.

Freshmen played early and often for all four teams in the first round of the Tip-Off Classic boys basketball tournament on Friday night, but the most prominent role among those first-year players belonged to Elida's Reggie McAdams.

The 6-foot, 4-inch freshman scored 12 points and hit back-to-back 3-pointers late in the fourth quarter to give Elida the lead for good in a 45-41 win over Shawnee.

The Bulldogs will play Lima Central Catholic, a 50-49 winner over Bath in Friday's other semifinal, for the tournament championship tonight.

There was no clear-cut favorite in this season's Tip-Off Classic, but as the defending Western Buckeye League champion, Shawnee was probably the de facto front-runner.

The Indians led by as many as seven points twice in the third quarter and were up 41-37 with just over two minutes to play. But when McAdams hit consecutive threes - one from the right corner, then one from the left corner -on the Bulldogs' next two possessions, Elida went ahead 43-41.

Matt Thompson, who also finished with 12 points, hit two free throws with 24 seconds to play to give Elida a 45-41 lead. Shawnee had two more possessions but turned the ball over on a charge, then missed three shots on its final time with the ball.

"I thought we were in it the whole game," McAdams said. "We got down at a couple points throughout the game but we just kept hanging in there and it paid off."

McAdams' ability to deliver in a key situation was no surprise to Elida coach Denny Thompson.

"Honestly, I don't even look at it like he's a freshman. I really expect him to do it and he expects and wants to do it," he said.

Michael Knotts added 11 points and six rebounds for the Bulldogs.

Garrick Werthem led Shawnee with 20 points, but one of the keys for Elida was holding the Indians' top scoring threat, Cody Smith, to six points, less than half of his average last season.

"To hold him to six points that's a credit to our defense. It was a team effort of recognizing where Cody was and not letting him get away," Thompson said.

Elida played without its top returning scorer, Bo Mathias, still recovering from surgery on his knee after missing summer basketball because of shoulder surgery.

"We played all summer without him so it wasn't an odd thing to not have him. It wasn't a big acclimation for us," Thompson said.

The Bulldogs had some problems getting acclimated to Shawnee's pressure defense and finished with 22 turnovers. But they compensated for that by holding the Indians to 28 percent shooting (13 of 47) and coming within one of them in rebounding, 27-26.

Lima Central Catholic jumped out to a 35-25 lead at halftime against Bath, but watched that lead melt away when it didn't score in the first 6:16 of the second half and missed 16 of its first 18 shots after halftime.

Bath built a four-point lead, 49-45, with 1:05 to play. A 15-footer by Desi Kirkman cut the advantage to 49-47, then Sam Stolly produced the game-winner with a deep 3-pointer from the right side with seven seconds to play.

"Stolly made a big shot. It was a gutty shot. But we shouldn't have been in a position to have to make a three," LCC coach Bob Seggerson said. "It wasn't pretty basketball by LCC tonight. I thought Bath played a better game than we did.

"I think Bath came out in the second half and just outplayed us. For some reason we came out in the second half and just went to sleep. We couldn't make a shot, we just basically stood around and watched them play," he said.

"About the only positive I could draw for us tonight was we kept our poise. We kept our poise and stayed in position to win the game."

Austin Stolly scored 14 points to lead LCC. Sam Stolly had 13 points and Kirkman scored 10. Dre White and Brad Davis had 13 points each for Bath.