Lima Senior’s Zion Jackson defends Hilliard Bradley’s David Heath during Saturday’s Ottawa-Glandorf Winter Classic. See more high school basketball photos at LimaScores.com.
Richard Parrish | The Lima News
OTTAWA — Ottawa-Glandorf found the second-half comeback it needed. Lima Senior, facing a much larger deficit, didn’t.
That was the story of how the two area boys basketball teams teams in the Ottawa-Glandorf Winter Classic fared on Saturday.
The Titans came away with a 47-43 win over Lakota East and the Spartans fell 70-52 to Hilliard Bradley. In the other two games in the Winter Classic, Columbus Bishop Ready beat Dayton Dunbar and Tiffin Columbian edged Wayne Trace.
After shooting only 28 percent (5 of 18) in the first half, O-G found itself down by five at halftime and by as many as nine points early in the second half.
The Titans were up by four points, 35-31, after three quarters but fell behind 40-38 with a minute and a half left in the game.
From there they went on a 9-0 run on a three-point play by Caden Erford, a drive by Theo Maag, a bucket by Grant Schroeder and two free throws by Maag with 15 seconds to play.
Colin White led O-G (15-3) with 19 points. Maag had 14 points and 9 rebounds and Erford scored 12 points.
“We needed that one,” Ottawa-Glandorf coach Tyson McGlaughlin said. “I was so proud of our effort in the second half. We lost a game just like that in December, we lost one just like that in January. Now, against a team of that caliber, we were able to get one late in the game. It shows our team is growing and that’s what you want at this time of the year.
“I was really proud of the way we were able to come back in the second half and assert ourselves and make some plays,” he said.
Neither team shot well early and there were some unusual circumstances in the first quarter when the game was stopped for around 20 minutes and the teams were sent to the locker room when a fan in the adult section next to the O-G student section suffered a medical emergency.
Ottawa-Glandorf moved to 15-3 with the win. The Titans’ next game will be against Defiance, the only other Western Buckeye League team without a league loss, on Friday night at O-G.
Hilliard Bradley 70, Lima Senior 52
To say Hilliard Bradley started the game with some hot shooting is an understatement.
The Jaguars (13-5) hit six 3-pointers in the first quarter, seven by halftime and 10 in the game. They made their first five 3-point attempts and shot 70 percent on threes in the first half and 65 percent overall in the first two quarters.
Garrett Sever, who finished with 18 points, hit his first three 3-pointers. Cade Norris, who led Bradley with 29 points, hit his first two shots from long range.
Needless to say, that resulted some big leads early in the game by Bradley. It was up by 20 points, 38-18, with 2 ½ minutes left in the first half and by 16 points, 40-24, at halftime.
Lima Senior fought back to cut the lead to nine points, 58-49, with 4:44 left in the game but that was as close as it got.
Je’Kel Cotton, who scored 13 points, was the only player to score in double figures for Lima Senior (13-6).
Lima Senior coach Quincey Simpson said the Spartans knew Bradley was a dangerous 3-point shooting team but didn’t put that information into use.
“I told them they need to play harder and listen the scouting report and pay attention to details because we didn’t do that in the first half. I’m not sure if they thought they couldn’t shoot the ball as well as they did in the first half. We scouted them, we watched films, we went over details and personnel and we gave up too many uncontested threes in the first half,” he said.
“We did better at closing out their shooters in the second half but you can’t give up nine threes and expect to win. And I didn’t think we played hard. They’re a really good team. I thought we did fight a little bit in the second half. I just thought those guys played harder than we did and typically we don’t play teams that play harder than we do but they did. We’ll go back to the drawing board and fix some things.”
Reach Jim Naveau at 567-242-0414.
