ELIDA – Sometimes it’s just good to get out with a win.
In Tuesday’s nonconference boys basketball matchup between Lima Senior and Elida, it came down to who would make the final play.
Lima Senior managed to stave off a pesky Elida squad in the final moments of the game to come away with a hard-fought 52-50 victory at the Elida Fieldhouse.
Both teams did not shoot well from the field. Lima Senior shot 30 percent from the floor, while Elida nearly mirrored the Spartans, shooting 31 percent.
It came down to the final seconds of the contest. The Spartans made key free throws in the waning moments to come away with the victory.
“I thought Elida outplayed us,” Lima Senior coach Quincey Simpson said. “Luckily, we came out with the win. But, (with) aggressiveness, 50-50 balls, energy, they outplayed us by far.
“I thought we came out with a lot of energy, and got off to that 10-0 run. They just started making bonehead decisions. We got a kid trying to dunk the ball. He had an opportunity to lay the ball up. We got guys throwing behind-the-back passes; stuff that is not conducive to what we do on a normal basis, and it almost cost us.”
Elida’s Daniel Unruh led all scorers with 23 points, including five 3-pointers. The 6-foot, 1-inch junior guard hit three 3-pointers in the second half to keep the Bulldogs close.
“He can kind of get on a roll like that,” Elida coach Denny Thompson said. “He’s the guy we go to in tough moments to score.”
Along with Unruh, teammate Baylen Stinson scored in double figures (14 points), while pulling down nine rebounds.
Jarius Ward led Lima Senior (3-2) with 19 points, and came away with a game-high 12 rebounds from his guard spot. Teammates B.J. Miller and Marquis Coleman each added nine points for the Spartans.
After Lima Senior opened the game with a 10-0 run, Elida (4-3) came back to make it a game.
The Spartans led until late in the second quarter, when Elida finally claimed its first lead on the night. Unruh sank two free throws at the 3:23 mark to give the Bulldogs an 18-16 lead.
Lima Senior snuck into the locker room at halftime with a slim 23-22 advantage.
In the third quarter, Elida jumped out to a 30-27 lead on a 3-pointer from the left wing by Unruh. However, the Spartans responded with a 10-0 run to take a 37-30 lead. By the end of the quarter, Lima Senior led 41-32.
In the final stanza, Elida cut the deficit to 1, 49-48, with 38 seconds remaining to play.
However, Miller made two free throws with 19 seconds left, giving the Spartans a 51-48 lead.
But, Elida responded.
With nine seconds left on the clock, Elida’s Drew Sarno (six points) drove the baseline and laid it in, cutting the Lima Senior lead to 51-50.
Then, with 7.1 seconds left to play, Miller converted on 1-of-2 shots from the charity stripe to round out the scoring for the Spartans.
Unruh did manage to get off a 3-point attempt at the buzzer, but it did not fall.
“I have to tip my hat to Elida,” Simpson said. “They stuck with their game plan and made big shots. We stole one tonight.”
For the game, Elida committed 15 turnovers, while Lima Senior turned it over 11 times.
“I think we only had six turnovers in the first half – a couple of them were early,” Thompson said. “We just had trouble scoring. I don’t think our defense was that bad. The thing we really worked on, was not creating turnovers that resulted in points. I thought we did a good job of that tonight.”
Simpson said there is a lot of work to be done.
“Our defense (was the key) at times,” Simpson said. “We can guard when we want to sit down and guard. We’ve always been able to do that. But, it takes five guys collectively to make that happen. And there were a lot of fouls. (There were) a lot of guys standing straight up, not sitting down and playing the passing lanes. Again, we were not paying attention to details. When you don’t do those things, you don’t win games.
“I thought in the first quarter, we applied a tremendous amount of (defensive) pressure. … I thought we applied a lot of pressure throughout the course of the game. But, it wasn’t all five guys.”
Added Thompson, “There were shades of last year, for a second there. But, our guys are a little more experienced now. I think they went back to what we worked on in the two practices we had to get ready, and relied on their experience.”
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