All season long, Lima Central Catholic boys basketball coach Frank Kill has compared the Thunderbirds to a puzzle where it was a matter of getting all the pieces in the right place.
Tuesday night, all the pieces lined up for the Thunderbirds in a 56-48 win over Spencerville at LCC that left the Bearcats looking a little puzzled and perplexed.
LCC (5-16) grabbed the lead against Spencerville (17-5) late in the first quarter and never lost it.
Thomas Williams, with 15 points, and Mark Janowski, with 14 points, led four double figures scorers. Anthony Venturella had 12 points and Biggz Johnson scored 11.
Dakota Prichard (19 points) and Bailey Croft (13 points) led Spencerville.
LCC led 20-14 at halftime, 32-28 after three quarters and never let the lead drop below six points in the final three minutes.
“We’ve been close in a lot of games for three or three and a half quarters but we typically have lost games down the stretch because of inexperience and execution and efficiency,” Kill said.
“Our guys tonight were disciplined enough that we didn’t turn the ball over when we used to. And defensively we got stops,” he said.
Spencerville coach Kevin Sensabaugh said he was disappointed with his team’s energy level above anything else.
“I didn’t feel like we came ready to bring it. LCC wanted to win that game. They were fighting to win and our guys were just out there playing. We didn’t have a whole lot of fight tonight,” Sensabaugh said.
If there was an energizer for Lima Central Catholic in the game, it might have been Venturella, a 6-foot senior, who came into Tuesday night’s game averaging 1.9 points a game.
His 12 points were a season high for him and all of them came on 3-pointers. He was 4 of 4 from behind the 3-point line.
He hit his first shot with 2 ½ minutes left in the first half, then hit two more in the first 45 seconds of the third quarter to put LCC up 26-14. His final bucket came early in the fourth quarter after Spencerville had cut the lead to three points.
“The first one looked good. I knew it was going in. That one went in and right out of the half I hit that big one and the crowd got crazy,” Venturella said.
“They were just going in tonight. It felt good. It was definitely the best I’ve shot the ball,” he said.
Kill said, “Tonight I saw balance from a lot of people. Some other guys stepped up, no one more than Anthony Venturella, who stepped up with some big shots.
“That’s what we need from some guys, to step up with some senior confidence. That’s what we got from Anthony,” he said.
Janowski and Williams each had 10 rebounds to lead the Thunderbirds to a 29-26 edge in that category.
“I wasn’t surprised,” Janowski said, when asked if LCC’s win surprised some people. “When this team wants to win we can go out and do anything.”
LCC shot 42 percent (20 of 48). Spencerville shot 39 percent (14 of 36) but couldn’t recover from 4 of 18 shooting in the first half. Ten of the Bearcats’ 14 turnovers also came in the first two quarters.
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