OG’s Colin White shows off the soft touch over Elida’s A’Mari Wash (4), and Seth Sharp (1) as the Titans battled the Bulldogs Friday night in Ottawa.
Nate Reynolds | The Lima News.
OTTAWA — They’d put in the time. And Friday night was the time Ottawa-Glandorf’s boys basketball team got the results.
The Titans (8-1, 2-0 Western Buckeye League) used their best offensive game of the season to dominate Elida 75-40 on Friday night.
O-G shot 66 percent on field goals, had four players score in double figures, and had a dozen 3-pointers against a team that came into the game on a seven-game winning streak.
Ottawa-Glandorf had devoted countless hours of putting up shots in the offseason but until Friday night hadn’t been fully rewarded for that work.
Colin White led O-G’s scoring with 21 points. Caden Erford had 15 points and Grady Toumazos and Alex Wagner scored 11 points. Zori Island led Elida (7-2, 1-1 WBL) with 11 points.
“Going into the season I thought one of the strengths of our team was going to be shooting the ball. But we just haven’t shot the ball well at all for the first eight games,” Ottawa-Glandorf coach Tyson McGlaughlin said.
McGlaughlin’s advice to his team through the first eight games and before Friday night’s contest was to keep shooting.
“That’s what coach has been saying – keep shooting, keep shooting they’re going to fall in,” Erford said.
“This week in practice we came in and it’s a new year. It might sound kind of corny but we said, ‘New year, new us. In 2024 we’re going to start shooting it lights out.’ I think that confidence through the whole week in practice helped us out tonight and kind of led to what was our best shooting game of the year so far,” he said.
Toumazos said the offseason shots that led to Friday night’s outburst measured in the thousands for him and his teammates.
“I worked on my shooting so much – thousands of shots in the offseason. Tonight, it felt good. I had confidence and knocked those shots down,” he said.
“In the offseason, we would come in around 6 o’clock (in the morning) and get our shots up. We’re always up here. Whenever somebody comes up here they’ll let the whole team know so they can come in and get shots up too.”
Elida led most of the first quarter and was up 20-19 halfway through the second quarter before O-G ended the first half on a 16-2 run to take a 35-22 halftime lead.
In that 16-2 streak, Toumazos hit two 3-pointers, Alex Wagner and Brody Fortman hit 3-pointers, and Erford and Ross Maag had 2-point buckets.
It was more of the same in the second half. Ottawa-Glandorf led by 29 points after three quarters and added to its lead in the fourth quarter. White got 16 of his 21 points in the second half after missing part of the second quarter when he picked up two quick fouls.
“The big thing for us, the most important thing for us tonight, was we got four guys in double figures. That’s the balance we’ve been talking about, that’s the balance we’re capable of. Hopefully, that’s a sign of things to come in 2024,” McGlaughlin said.
O-G’s defense also played a role in its win when it forced 18 turnovers from Elida.
“I think it was a combination. I think our defense tightened things up and obviously, we made some shots. We gave up 17 (points) in the first quarter. After that I thought we did a really good job,” McGlaughlin said.
Erford said, “That’s kind of the pride of O-G is our defense. We say that’s what everything starts around. Once we got in them a little bit and got a couple of turnovers and some fast breaks and got the crowd involved it led to open shots down the line later in the game.”
Ottawa-Glandorf 75, Elida 40
Score by quarters:
Elida 17 5 10 6 – 40
O-G 14 21 26 14 – 75
ELIDA
Seth Sharp 3, David Etzkorn 4, A’mari Wash 8, Zori Island 11, Jackson Covault 8, Eben Jackson 2, Gabe Adcock 2. Totals: 19-2-40.
OTTAWA-GLANDORF
Colin White 21, Caden Erford 15, Ross Maag 4, Grant Schroeder 7, Grady Toumazos 11, Alex Wagner 11, Brody Fortman 4, Adam Maag 2. Totals: 27-9-75.
Three-point goals: OG –Erford 3, Wagner 3, Toumazos 3, White 1, Schroeder 1, Fortman 1. Elida – none.
Records: Ottawa-Glandorf (8-1, 2-0 WBL); Elida (7-2, 1-1 WBL).
