New Bremen’s Hayden Zeller (left) and Perry’s Elijah Caudill go for a loose ball during a Friday night Division IV sectional final at Coldwater. See more high school basketball photos at LimaScores.com.
Don Speck | The Lima News
COLDWATER — Throughout the year, Perry has struggled in the third quarter and unfortunately for the Commodores the same thing happened against New Bremen as the Cardinals secured a 76-45 victory to snare the Division IV sectional title Friday night
With the win, New Bremen improves to 16-7 and advances to the district semifinal to face Midwest Athletic Conference rivals St. Henry at Wapakoneta at 6 p.m. Tuesday. Perry ends this year’s campaign with an 11-13 mark.
“From the first game out Achilles’ Heel has been the third quarter with the exception of probably two games,” Perry head coach Clay Tucker said. “Hat’s off to New Bremen. They did everything we thought they would do. They switched on the defensive end which gave us some confusion.
“I thought we prepared well for the things that they did but we had 19 turnovers and 15 or 16 missed layups and over the course of the game that adds up and that’s how you lose by 31 points.”
Both teams struggled to control the ball in the early stages of the game and as the two teams worked out their playoff jitters, the score had New Bremen up 16-13 after the first eight minutes.
It was in the second quarter when the Cardinals defense began to clamp down and convert transition buckets allowing the majority of the New Bremen baskets to come within five feet of the basket.
New Bremen began to assert itself in the second quarter and opened up a 29-16 advantage after the Cardinals outscored the Commodores 15-3 in the first five minutes to give New Bremen a 31-16 lead with 2:38 left in the first half. Perry rallied to cut the lead to, 36-26 by the time the buzzer sounded for halftime.
“We didn’t get our offense to gel but defense travels,” Tucker said. “Offensively you are going to have nights where you don’t shoot the ball well but it is your defense, your effort and energy that can travel. For the first quarter and half did well but our guys got fatigued and New Bremen did a heck of job of putting it away.”
New Bremen’s Aaron Thieman opened the second half by spearheading an 8-0 run as he hit a layup followed by back-to-back trey to up the Cardinals’ lead to 44-26.
“Our emphasis was taking care of the ball,” New Bremen head coach Cory Stephens said. “At the start of the game they had seven points and I think five out of the seven were on turnovers with their pressure…..”We say defense will lead to offense and so when your defense gets after it it doesn’t matter what you do on offense that night because you will always have a shot so hang our hat on our defense’
“We just angled their pressure a little bit so when we were able to handle the pressure we were able to get the ball inside and we got a lot of good looks, and that is what we keep telling them, move the ball side to side and not necessarily dribble and when you make the defense move with the pass you are going to get good shots in the rotation.”
The Cardinals saw three different players in double digits as Hayden Zeller, coming off the bench, led the club with 13 points. Thomas finished with 11 and David Homan added 10 points and seven rebounds.
For Perry, Kameron Moore led all scorers with 17 points.
St. Henry 72, Temple Christian 47
COLDWATER — St. Henry scored the first 15 points of the game and never trailed as they defeated Temple Chrisitan, 72-47, to capture the Division II sectional title Friday.
St. Henry improves to 14-11 on the year and Temple Christians finishes its season with a 10-14 record.
St. Henry’s Luke Beyke led the Redskins with 15 points and John Hartings added 11. Evan Bowers chipped in 10 points. and he grabbed 13 caroms.
For Temple Christian, Landon Callahan paced the Pioneers with 11 points. Dawson Clay chipped in 10 and snared 11 rebound and Caleb Kiser added 19 points.
As a team, the Pioneers shot 37 percent from the field and St. Henry was 49 percent from the field.
Reach Jose Nogueras at 567-242-0468.
