WAPAKONETA – It was imperfect perfection, if there can be such a thing.
Ottawa-Glandorf’s girls basketball team completed an undefeated regular season and won an outright Western Buckeye League championship with a 44-38 win over Wapakoneta on the Redskins’ home court on Saturday.
The Titans (22-0, 9-0 WBL) never led at the end of a quarter until the fourth quarter and they had to come from behind twice in the final eight minutes to head into tournament play with a perfect record.
“It was like we were walking uphill all the way,” Ottawa-Glandorf coach Troy Yant said.
But the Titans traded their hiking boots for track shoes in a 3 ½ -minute run that started just before the end of the third quarter and carried into the early part of the fourth quarter. And that allowed them to finally put some distance between themselves and Wapakoneta (15-6, 7-2 WBL).
O-G went from being down 27-23 to a 36-29 lead during that streak. It took the lead for good on a 3-pointer by Erin Kaufman that made it 32-29 with 5:05 to play.
Then, after a Wapakoneta turnover, the Titans grabbed control of the game with what was basically a four-point play.
Lexie Schroeder hit the first shot of a one-and-one and missed the second. Kadie Hempfling got the rebound, scored and was fouled. She added a free throw to make it 36-29 with 4:53 to play and Wapakoneta never got closer than four points the rest of the way.
Hempfling scored 15 points to lead Ottawa-Glandorf and Kylie White had 12 points and 11 rebounds. Sarah Pothast’s 14 points led Wapakoneta, but O-G’s defense and her own foul trouble limited her to two points in the second half.
The Titans, who are ranked No. 1 in Division II and were last year’s D-II state runner-up, know the bottom line is about results, not style points.
“We probably could have played better but we did enough to finish and get a win,” White said.
Hempfling said, “We came in here pretty excited. The first half we didn’t get what we wanted. In the second half we executed better – not as well as we can – but we did better.
“It (an unbeaten regular season) was in the back of our minds. We just wanted to take care of business, but now we’re celebrating,” she said.
White said the postseason overshadows the regular season in her mind. But going 22-0 isn’t too bad, either.
“Personally, I don’t think an undefeated season means anything at all because ultimately the tournament trail means more. But an undefeated season is still great. It’s awesome,” she said.
White scored nine of her 12 points in the second half and Hempfling got 10 of her 15 points in the final 12 minutes of the game.
“Every possession mattered,” Yant said. “We weren’t really able to do anything we wanted to do. Maybe the girls were a little too excited about the game and the opportunity.
“They (Wapakoneta) did exactly what I would have done to try to take it away from us and they almost did,” he said. “They had bodies on Kadie and Kylie every time they touched the ball. In the big moments we were looking for Kadie and Kylie to take it home and obviously, so was Wapak.”
Wapakoneta coach Rusty Allen offered a theory that when two good teams match up with each other, it often becomes a game dominated by either offense or defense.
This one obviously belonged to the defenses. Wapakoneta shot 30 percent on field goals (11 of 36) and O-G hit 29 percent (14 of 48).
At the end of the first half, Wapakoneta had a 15-14 lead but could have put the Titans in a much more dangerous position if it could have hit a few more shots. The Redskins were only 3 of 20 in the first two quarters, though.
“You can say should have, could have, would have all night long. We just didn’t knock down a few shots that we may hit normally. They did an outstanding job defensively,” Allen said.
At the end of the game, O-G had an outstanding regular season and a second consecutive Western Buckeye League title to celebrate.
“Not too many teams get a chance to go undefeated in the regular season,” Yant said. “They rose up and got it at the end. It’s a huge accomplishment for them.”
.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%;
}
