Spencerville weathers early storm, beats Ottoville 66-54

OTTOVILLE – A strong fourth quarter led Spencerville to a 66-54 non-league boys basketball win over Ottoville on Saturday night.

The Bearcats (3-2) led by only one point, 30-29, at halftime and were up by four points, 44-40, heading into the fourth quarter before pulling away in the final eight minutes.

Evan Osting led Spencerville with 18 points and nine of those points came in the fourth quarter. Owen Sensabaugh scored 15 points and Carter Sudhoff had 13 points. Keaton Schnipke led Ottoville (4-2) with 20 points, including four 3-pointers.

“Evan (Osting) has been a true senior for us. He takes care of the ball. He does the little things right. He can shoot and tonight was his night,” Spencerville coach Kevin Sensabaugh said.

Ottoville began the contest on fire from behind the arc, hitting 4 of its first five shots from 3-point range to take an 18-14 lead after one quarter.

Garrett Trentman knocked down a pair of three-point field goals and Adam Brinkman and Schnipke each had one in the first eight minutes.

“We have wanted Garrett and Keaton to find that success and I’m excited that they got going a little bit and hopefully that can continue to carry over into our season,” Ottoville coach Keith Utendorf said.

From the Spencerville perspective, Sensabaugh wasn’t happy with the Bearcats’ defense in the early going.

“I didn’t think we played great in the first quarter defensively. We can’t give up 18 points. We have a very high ceiling and we have some work to do. But our guys continue to fight,” he said.

Utendorf said, “Tonight was a battle between two good teams. Spencerville is a really good basketball team, and we gave ourselves an opportunity to compete tonight, so I am really happy with our guys.”

Spencerville’s win was its third in a row after losing its first two games. It will return to action at home against Minster on Friday. Ottoville will travel to Lincolnview on Friday.