PAULDING — Ottawa-Glandorf’s 51-40 win over Bath in a Division II girls basketball district semifinal on Thursday night looked very little like the Titans’ regular-season game against the Wildkittens.
And that was exactly what O-G was looking for.
The Titans ran out to a huge lead early on Thursday night and led by 10 points or more for the last 25 minutes of the game.
O-G also won the regular season game in December but had to come back from 13 points down in the second half to get a 49-45 victory.
Kylie White scored 16 points and crossed the 1,000-point mark in her career to lead Ottawa-Glandorf into a Saturday night district championship match-up with Wapakoneta. Lexie Schroeder scored 11 points and Erin Kaufman had 10 points, all of them in the first half when O-G built a 31-13 lead after two quarters.
Obviously, starting fast was in the Titans’ game plan after playing from behind most of their regular season game against Bath.
“The last time we played them we didn’t play our best game to begin with and Mr. Yant (O-G coach Troy Yant) really put it in our heads that we needed to get after them and get them down early in the first half,” White said.
Ottawa-Glandorf took advantage of five Bath turnovers in the first quarter to jump out to an 18-5 lead and was up 31-13 at halftime.
Bath took care of the ball better in the second quarter, with only one turnover, but continued its cold shooting from the first quarter. The Wildkittens hit only 5 of 25 field goal attempts in the first two quarters.
Schroeder said, “That was a major key that we had to box out, jump on them and come out strong.
“I thought we played really well, especially in the first half. We came out strong and we talked a little on defense, which I thought made them a little flustered. It worked really well for us,” she said. “We kind of fell out of it in the second half and kind of let them get some easy buckets.”
Bath coach Greg Mauk said that while the Wildkittens shot poorly early and had a few turnovers, it was what happened after those turnovers that might have been the most damaging in the early going.
“I think we were 4 of 16 inside the arc in the first two quarters and that kind of spelled our doom,” he said. “But I thought the biggest issue for us was we gave up some run out lay-ups, which is something we didn’t want to happen. They got some easy baskets, which kind of multiplied the fact we weren’t scoring.”
Ottawa-Glandorf coach Troy Yant said, “I thought the girls were really keyed in on the defense early. We got some turnovers, we got some run outs. We really didn’t have to execute a lot of offense but I thought we did a good job when we had to.
“I thought Lexi , Erin and Ashley (Schroeder) did a good job of taking their shooters out of the game. I’m real happy with the way we finished the first half. You don’t want to let down but you do. Our girls were tired and obviously Bath wanted to get back into it. But we’ll take it,” he said.
White is the third girls basketball player at Ottawa-Glandorf to score 1,000 points or more. One of the others is her mother, Sandy (Buddelmeyer) White with 1,059. The other is Melanie Halker with 1,204.
“It’s a great feeling, it’s a really big accomplishment. Only three people have done it in girls basketball (at Ottawa-Glandorf) and I’m really proud to be with those awesome players and I hope many more are to come,” White said.
“It’s really awesome you can share something like that with your mom,” she said.
Wapakoneta 48,
Defiance 40
After falling behind 11-3 after one quarter, Wapakoneta regrouped and had the lead by halftime, at 14-13, after Defiance scored only two points in the second quarter.
The Redskins (17-6) led the rest of the way. Lexi Jacobs scored 17 points and Megan Fisher had 12 points.
“We just needed to relax and stay composed. And we talked about locking down defensively,” Wapakoneta coach Rusty Allen said.
“We picked up the intensity a little defensively and that kind our fueled our offense,” he said.
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