Lima Central Catholic’s Willie Foster drives between New Bremen’s Hayden Zeller (22) and Aaron Thieman (2) during LCC’s 65-50 win in a Division IV boys basketball district semifinal at Wapakoneta on Tuesday night.
Jackelyn Johnson | The Lima News
WAPAKONETA – It was just the beginning but it foretold how the game would end.
Lima Central Catholic jumped out to an 18-7 lead after one quarter and rolled to a 65-50 win over New Bremen in a Division IV boys basketball district semifinal on Tuesday night at Wapakoneta High School.
LCC (23-2) will play Marion Local (12-13) at 6 p.m. Friday for the district championship. The Flyers won 51-41 over St. Henry in the other semifinal at Wapakoneta.
“It was good. That let us settle down a little bit, take control of the clock,” LCC sophomore guard Jordan Priddy said about getting a big lead early.
Priddy led four double figures scorers for the Thunderbirds with 18 points. Willie Foster scored 13 points, Carson Parker had 11 points and DeMarr Foster got 10 points.
New Bremen (11-14) led only once, at 2-0, when Hayden Zeller banked in a 15-footer in the first minute of the game. DeMarr Foster answered with a bucket and a 3-pointer and the Thunderbird had the lead for good.
“DeMarr came out and scored five quick points and we were able to sit on that lead the entire game,” LCC coach Sean Powell said.
“Whenever you play against a team that is zone dominant you want to get the game started on a positive note and try to get the lead so then you can dictate the tempo, you can be as patient as you want on the offensive end,” he said.
Priddy hit four of his first five shots and all three of his 3-pointers came in the first half. He finished the game 7 of 13 on field goals, with most of his shots coming from long range.
“I felt really good. Yesterday in practice I told my coaches, ‘Hey, I’m hot.’ And I kept that hotness today,” he said.
Powell said, “Whenever Jordan is rolling we’re a totally different team. We’ll be hard to beat when Jordan is hitting shots. Or if the team is hitting shots from the perimeter. We understand that. We spend time every day getting shots up. Tonight it paid off.”
LCC shot 46 percent on field goals (22 of 48) and dominated the rebounding statistics, 29 to 16. Parker led LCC with eight rebounds. Priddy had seven and Billy Bourk had six.
“I felt like our team did a great job on the boards. We knew they were going to shoot a lot of threes, we were going to shoot a lot of threes. Whenever you shoot threes there are going to be a lot of long rebounds,” Powell said.
Having an opponent play a zone defense has become commonplace for LCC, especially since Delphos St. John’s went away from its usual man-to-man and played zone when it handed the Thunderbirds one of their two losses, 58-53, on Jan. 14.
“We’ve seen a lot of zone throughout the season. I think after the Delphos St. John’s game we’ve seen it even more than we did earlier in the season,” Powell said
“I felt like we moved the ball well tonight. Knowing they were going to play a zone our goal was to either attack early (in a possession) or attack late. If we can get a quality shot early in our offense, we would. But if not we were going to be very patient and get exactly what we wanted,” he said.
Jackson Lennartz led New Bremen with 15 points, including three 3-pointers. Aaron Thieman scored 14 points and Zeller added 12 points.
Lima Central Catholic 65, New Bremen 50
Score by quarters:
LCC 18 14 17 16 — 65
New Bremen 7 18 10 15 — 50
LIMA CENTRAL CATHOLIC
Carson Parker 11, DeMarr Foster 10, Billy Bourk 8, Willie Foster 13, Jordan Priddy 18, Matthew Quatman 2, Parker Judy 2. Totals: 22-16-65.
NEW BREMEN
Jackson Lennartz 15, Keaton Puthoff 2, Hayden Zeller 12, Roger Muether 2, Aaron Thieman 14, Ryland Busse 1, Zach Wiedeman 2, Grant Dicke 2. Totals: 19-5-50.
Three-pointers: LCC — Jordan Priddy 3, DeMarr Foster 2; NB — Lennartz 3, Thieman 2, Zeller 2.
Records: LCC 23-2; New Bremen 11-14.
