LEIPSIC — Bath turned one second chance into an even bigger second chance when it beat St. Marys 48-38 in a Division II girls basketball sectional championship at Leipsic High School on Saturday night.
With that win, the Wildkittens moved on to play No. 1-ranked Ottawa-Glandorf in a district semifinal game at Paulding on Thursday night at 6:15. The Titans, like the Roughriders, beat Bath during the regular season.
St. Marys’ 42-33 regular-season win over Bath came on a night when the Wildkittens shot 23 percent, which might have put a little something extra into the rematch for them.
“We were really lucky to have them again to redeem ourselves from the first game,” senior guard Jaidyn Hale said.
Bailey Dackin scored 13 points and had 8 rebounds to lead Bath (16-7). Eleven of those points and all but one rebound came in the second half after she picked up two fouls in the first three minutes of the game.
Shania Taylor, who went over 1,000 points in her career in the game, had 13 points and 12 rebounds for St. Marys (14-10).
Both teams opened the game ice cold when St. Mary missed its first 10 shots and Bath was 1 of its first 12.
St. Marys opened up an 18-13 halftime lead and had a five-point lead early in the third quarter when Bath ran off 13 unanswered points to go up 28-20. St. Marys was never able to get closer than four points the rest of the way.
“Intensity and Bailey Dackin got back on the floor” were two of the differences Bath coach Greg Mauk saw in the second half from his team.”I thought we had all kinds of kids step up tonight. I was really happy with out effort,” he said.
“The press turned things around, swung the momentum in our direction and got them hurried up a little bit,” Mauk said. “That got the momentum where I thought it should be.”
He also said getting a second chance was somewhat of an incentive for his team.
“Any competitor has that feeling when you don’t play very well and you didn’t perform like you should, you’d like another chance. The unfortunate thing is you don’t get second chances very often. I thought we performed when we needed to,” Mauk said.
Ottawa-Glandorf 66,
Shawnee 30
The No. 1-ranked Titans won by 36 points, had 10 players score and forced 35 turnovers, but still felt they could have done more. Or at least could have removed all doubt a little earlier.
Ottawa-Glandorf (23-0) jumped out to a 34-15 halftime lead and it could have been bigger if the Titans hadn’t missed several lay-ups and put up a couple of airballs in the first two quarters, especially when it was 6 of 20 on field goals in the first quarter.
“I thought we played well. There were just a lot of trips up and down the floor where we weren’t getting points,” O-G coach Troy Yant said.
“At times it looked good and at other times it looked like a mess. It was like we were trying to get to 80 points on every possession instead of just taking them as they came. Between the airballs and the missed lay-ups I was getting kind of frustrated. We just needed to settle down,” he said.
Kylie White led Ottawa-Glandorf with 24 points and eight rebounds. Lexie Schroeder scored nine points. The Titans’ leading scorer on the season Kadie Hempfling scored four points.
Alissa Stahler led Shawnee (8-16) with nine points.
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