Spencerville’s Kevin Sensabaugh is set to coach his 500th career game on Friday night in the Bearcats’ postseason opener.
Richard Parrish | The Lima News
SPENCERVILLE — Once a Bearcat, always a Bearcat.
When Spencerville coach Kevin Sensabaugh leads his team into its tournament opener on Friday night, it’ll be more than “just another game,” it’ll be No. 500 for Sensabaugh in his 22-year coaching career.
In the last 30 years of Spencerville’s boys basketball program, Sensabaugh’s name is present in some form for 25 of those years. From all-star player to long-tenured head coach, Sensabaugh has left his mark at his alma mater.
Following his collegiate playing days at Ohio Northern University, Sensabaugh found himself coaching junior high basketball in Marion and mulling over the option to return to Spencerville or go in a different direction.
Twenty-two years and 293 wins later, it’s safe to say his decision to return home was the right one.
“When I started my coaching adventure in Marion, I was unsure If I wanted to come back to my home school in Spencerville, but I ended up moving back here and coaching the junior varsity team under Scott Nourse,” Sensabaugh said. “Once I came back, I quickly discovered the feeling that I didn’t want to do this anywhere else, because I deeply care about Spencerville basketball and the community, and I wanted to be a part of making it special.”
Once he took over the varsity program for the 2002-2003 season, the next task for Sensabaugh was to build a loyal coaching staff and build a team of his own on the floor.
His first pick was a no-brainer. Kevin selected Jim Sensabaugh, his father and the person who taught him the game as a child, to serve as an assistant coach.
The strong father-son bond the two shared, along with the opportunity to spend time together while molding young athletes, made the decision an obvious one.
“Not many people get to do this with their dads, so I feel very fortunate and very lucky to be able to spend over 15 years coaching together with him,” Sensabaugh said.
“The main thing you want when you’re putting together a staff is somebody that is going to be loyal, and obviously he is as loyal as it gets. He had discipline and knew how to hold people accountable. He had all the right attributes that I wanted in an assistant, so to be able to hang out with him every day for a very long time was a really cool experience.”
Kevin and Jim no longer share the sidelines after more than a decade and a half together, but Kevin’s two sons, Owen and Will, now grace the starting lineup, keeping the family aspect of Sensabaugh’s job alive and well.
Owen is currently in his sophomore season for the Bearcats. He leads the team in scoring with 14.1 points per game and was recently voted to the Northwest Conference’s first team.
Will occupies a guard spot in Spencerville’s first five. As a freshman, he averages 9.6 points per game and earned a nod to the NWC’s second team.
Together, Kevin, Owen and Will led the Bearcats to an overall record of 18-4 and their second straight outright conference title with an unbeaten mark of 8-0 in NWC play.
It was the latest memory in a career that’s been full of them for Kevin Sensabaugh.
Some of those accomplishments include seven total NWC championships in 2005, 2006, 2013, 2015, 2017, 2023, and 2024, along with a number of big wins in some intense environments.
Spencerville’s 2017 conference title was a result of Dakota Prichard’s game-winner against Delphos Jefferson on the Bearcats’ home court to win the conference outright.
Zach Goecke’s buzzer-beater against Lima Central Catholic back in 2014 was another that came to mind.
More recently, Sensabaugh highlighted a pair of plays that Carter Sudhoff has made over the past two seasons: A last-second layup against Crestview in 2023 and a tip-in at the buzzer against Bluffton in early February.
Without those two plays, Sensabaugh said Spencerville wouldn’t have won back-to-back outright conference championships.
“It’s just crazy to think that 500 games have gone by. It’s wild to me,” Sensabaugh said. “It doesn’t feel like that many because you’re always just trying to win the next one, and you lose track of all the numbers and little things that go by. You look back at it now, and it has been so amazing to be a part of everything.”
As a player, Kevin Sensabaugh never won a sectional championship. He’s accomplished that many times as a head coach but is still searching for his first district championship.
Full-court buzzer-beaters and missed last-second shots are among the obstacles that have kept the Bearcats out of the regional tournament since the 1987 season, but Sensabaugh says it’d be a dream come true to join Rick Bowersock in the history books as the only other Spencerville coach to win a district title.
His ultimate goal is to lead the Bearcats even further into the regional and state tournaments, driven by memories of the feelings that surrounded the community during the 1987 season.
“I remember back in 1987 when we made it into the regional tournament, which was my sister’s senior year,” he said. “I just remember the entire community buzzing. We played in Toledo, and it was important for everyone. I would love for our community and kids to experience that again.”
Nate Stidham wrote this feature for LimaScores.com
