It was more than one game, more than one person. It took an entire season to be the No. 1 local sports story in 2016.
The 2015-2016 boys basketball season might have been the greatest ever in Lima and so it became the top local sports story of this year.
Lima Central Catholic won the Division III state championship and finished with a 28-1 record with its only loss coming on a shot just before the buzzer against Lima Senior.
Lima Senior (29-1) got all the way to the Division I state championship game before Westerville South scored in the final five seconds to beat the Spartans 57-55, their first loss of the season.
Xavier Simpson, of Lima Senior, was named Mr. Basketball and two LCC players – Dantez Walton and Tre Cobbs – were voted to the Division III first-team All-Ohio squad. And Perry played in its first regional tournament.
Simpson, now playing for the University of Michigan, finished his career with 1,986 points and averaged 27 points a game as a senior.
He followed Greg Simpson (1991, 1992), Aaron Hutchins (1994) and Jamar Butler (2004) as Mr. Basketball winners from Lima. Cleveland, also with five winners, is the only city to produce as many Mr. Basketballs.
LCC’s state title was its second in three seasons, with a state runner-up finish in between in 2015, and its third in seven seasons. The Thunderbirds won their seven tournament games by 58, 36, 27, 31, 25, 18 and 22 points.
The No. 2 story was the curtain coming down on a legendary coaching career.
Kalida boys basketball coach Dick Kortokrax announced his retirement after 890 wins in 56 years of coaching at Kalida, Ottoville and Fort Jennings.
The last 41 years were at Kalida, where the Wildcats won a state championship in 1981, were state runner-up in 1988 and 2009 and were a state semifinalist in 1980. They also won or shared 21 Putnam County League titles.
Kortokrax’s retirement was not entirely his own idea. He said he had been notified that the Kalida Board of Education would not renew his coaching contract.
Kortokrax finished with an 890-371 record. Former Columbus Grove coach Ryan Stechschulte was hired to replace him.
Another resignation, this one by a football coach, is the No. 3 story of the year.
After bringing Lima Senior back from more than a decade of football misery, Mike Fell left Lima Senior to move to Arizona, where he was quickly hired as head football coach at Mesa Mountain View High School.
Lima Senior had won only 20 games in the 12 seasons before Fell was hired in 2013 and was coming off an 0-10 season.
His first team won five games and that was followed by an eight-win season in 2014 and a nine-win season in 2015. The 2014 and 2015 teams reached the playoffs.
National signing day for high school football players produced the No. 4 story of the year.
Four area players signed to play for NCAA Division I schools, led by Leipsic offensive lineman Gavin Cupp putting his signature on a national letter of intent to play for Ohio State.
Lima Senior had two players sign that day – Ruben Flowers III joined the University of Pittsburgh’s program and Jaylin Thomas signed with Ball State. Delphos Jefferson linebacker Dalton Hicks signed with Kent State.
Lima Senior’s search for a new football coach is the No. 5 story of the year.
If the Spartans were looking for a “name” coach to replace Fell, they found him in Andre Griffin, son of Ohio State legend Archie Griffin. The first-year coach, whose previous experience had been in college coaching, led Lima Senior to a 6-4 record.
At No. 6, the Lima Locos made news on and off the field.
The Locos finished runner-up in the Great Lakes Summer Collegiate League but then did not renew the contract of coach Chad Ehrnsberger, who also had been in charge when the Locos won the GLSCL championship in 2015. Pitching coach Brian Garman will replace Ehrnsberger in 2017.
A former Locos player, Kyle Lewis, also made news when he was selected eleventh overall in the major league amateur baseball draft by the Seattle Mariners.
A repeat performance is the No. 7 story of the year. Ottoville’s Brooke Mangas repeated the Division III state high jump title she had won as a sophomore in 2015 and set a D-III record by clearing 5 feet, 10 inches.
That height was four inches better than the Division I state champion’s and three inches better than the Division II champion. She has signed with Ohio State.
The No. 8 story is another individual state championship. LCC junior Emily Sreenan won the Division III state championship in cross country in a personal-best time of 18:01.8, well ahead of runner-up Kyleigh Edwards, of Fairfield Christian Academy, who finished 23 seconds behind her.
Sreenan also finished fifth in the 1,600-meters and 3,200-meters at the state track meet.
Crestview’s state softball championship checks in at No. 9.
After building a 3-0 lead on Strasburg-Franklin, things got a little tense in the bottom of the seventh inning in the Division III state championship game when the lead was cut to 3-2 and there were Strasburg-Franklin runners on second and third base.
But Crestview closed out the game to win the school’s third state softball title.
The No. 10 story is an annual part of this list. The Midwest Athletic Conference played for state championships and won two of them.
Marion Local’s football team and Minster’s girls cross country team added to the long list of MAC state champions. Also, Coldwater and Minster’s football team were state runners-up and Fort Recovery and Versailles reached the state semifinals in baseball.
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