OTTOVILLE — First they pushed a piano onto the court for the Homecoming ceremony before the game.
Then Ottoville hit every note it wanted to hit in a 52-35 boys basketball win over Fort Jennings on Friday night.
The Big Green and Fort Jennings both came into the game on five-game losing streaks, so someone was going to go home happy and relieved.
When Ottoville built a 17-point lead two minutes into the second half, it was clear this game probably was going to have a very different ending than when the two teams met on Dec. 16 in a non-league game and Fort Jennings won 56-50.
Ottoville (8-7, 2-2 Putnam County League) was led by Nick Moorman with 17 points and Logan Kemper, who had 14 points and 13 rebounds.
Defense and rebounding were huge factors for Ottoville, the Big Green’s coach Todd Turnwald said.
“It all starts defensively. We’ve been giving up way too many points. Tonight, defensively we did a great job,” he said.
Ottoville had allowed 70 points or more in its last three games. Its defensive performance hit what might have been its low point in a 70-60 loss to Allen East on Tuesday night, a game Turnwald described as “about as bad as I’ve seen us play all year.”
“The guys did a hell of a job defensively tonight. I thought they made some good adjustments in practice the last couple days. After Tuesday’s performance, we needed this bad,” he said.
Ottoville limited Fort Jennings to 27 percent shooting on field goals (11 of 41) and had a 31-21 rebounding edge. The Big Green shot 48 percent (20 of 42) from the field.
Moorman said, “We put a big emphasis on defense and rebounding. They killed us on the boards last time. This time we just focused on that and stopped them.”
Kemper also said boxing out and rebounding were big factors in the win. “Coach said we had to get it done to win and we got it done. And we ran the floor and tried to get some offense going, too. We were a little behind the last time,” he said.
Moorman and Kemper averaged 18 points and 13 points a game last season as sophomores and have played similar roles this season.
“He can score it, he can rebound. I would put him up against pretty much anybody in the area,” Turnwald said about Kemper. “He can play. And he’s only a junior, which is what I like best. And Nick has been right there with him.”
Fort Jennings (4-11, 0-4 PCL) got 11 points from Luke Trentman and 10 points from Ian Finn.
“Shooting obviously was an issue tonight. The numbers will prove that. We had, I think, 16 turnovers. For whatever reason we were off kilter tonight,” Fort Jennings coach Keith Utendorf said. “That’s a credit to their defensive game plan and what they did.
“The first time we played, I think we out-rebounded them by 15 and had something like 13 offensive rebounds. Tonight we had four and they had nine. They did a great job on the defensive glass. That was an entire 180 from the last game,” he said.
Turnwald went with a different starting lineup and gave Keagan Leis his first start as part of the emphasis on rebounding better. The 6-foot, 2-inch junior had four points and four rebounds.
“We’ve got the tools if we just guard and rebound. I think we can build off this and keep going forward,” Turnwald said.
.neFileBlock {
margin-bottom: 20px;
}
.neFileBlock p {
margin: 0px 0px 0px 0px;
}
.neFileBlock .neFile {
border-bottom: 1px dotted #aaa;
padding-bottom: 5px;
padding-top: 10px;
}
.neFileBlock .neCaption {
font-size: 85%;
}
