Ottawa-Glandorf’s Alex Wagner watches as his 3-point attempt successfully heads toward the rim in Saturday’s Division III district championship game against Spencerville at Lima Senior.
Jessica Trinko | The Lima News
LIMA — With a play called “Money,” you bet Ottawa-Glandorf’s Alex Wagner cashed in on the opportunity.
Wagner, a 6-foot-2 senior guard who comes off the bench, hit an uncontested 3-pointer from the right corner — his only shot attempt of the game — to tie the Titans’ game against Spencerville with 13 seconds in regulation. His triple sparked a 56-52 overtime victory in the Division III district championship game at Lima Senior.
Colin White scored 34 points and pulled down nine rebounds in the game. With the Titans trailing by three at the end of regulation, the 6-foot 6, Ohio State signee White was more of a decoy on an in-bounds play.
“I set a screen for Colin, and I knew they’d collapse down on him,” Wagner said. “I got to the corner. They saw I was open, and I saw the ball coming, and I was confident.”
Spencerville tried a three of its own at the buzzer, which bounced off the rim. In overtime, the Bearcats jumped out to a quick two-point lead when Will Sensabaugh had a steal and a layup, but White had two more buckets, and Caden Erford hit a pair of free throws to seal the win. Overall, O-G hit 10 of 11 attempts from the charity stripe.
The Titans (22-3), winners of their last six games, face Toledo Emmanuel Christian, which beat Archbold on Saturday night in Napoleon. They’ll play at 8 p.m. Wednesday at Bowling Green State University in their fourth-straight regional.
Spencerville finished the season 20-5 after bowing out to the Titans last year too. The Bearcats struggled at the free-throw line, hitting 9 of 18 attempts and missing an opportunity to put the game out of reach when they led by as many as seven points halfway through the third quarter.
White said he felt motivated by a past Titan game in Lima Senior’s gym, from when Coldwater knocked off O-G back in 2019.
“We were really close to that senior class that year,” White said. “My brother was a senior, and it was kind of a group that underachieved. They really thought they could do more. When I came into this gym, I remembered sitting up in the stands, and I had a rough time with us losing that one. I really didn’t want us to lose at this stage.”
The Titans’ Dave Westrick, a 6-foot-7 center who’s rehabilitating from a knee injury seven months ago, was effective in the paint for O-G, grabbing a team-high 11 rebounds while defending Carte Sudhoff, an all-Northwest Conference first-teamer. Westrick had two pivotal defensive rebounds in the overtime session.
“It’s amazing. This is what I’ve been working towards the whole time,” Westrick said. “This is what it’s all about. Every rehab session, I think about this.”
For most of the game, he willed his team toward a win. White went the first quarter and a half without missing a shot and had 15 points by halftime, including a stolen inbounds pass he made into a dunk on a 7-2 run in the first quarter.
The Bearcats went toe to toe with the top-ranked team in the final Associated Press poll, though. They used a steady diet of Evan Osting (15 points), Carter Sudhoff (11 points and 10 rebounds), Owen Sensabuagh (10 points) and Will Sensabaugh (nine points).
“That was a heavyweight fight,” O-G coach Tyson McGlaughlin said. “I have the utmost respect for Spencerville. They’re tough kids, and they’re far from done with that young team. Their best basketball is still ahead of them.”
The game was played before a sellout crowd at Lima Senior, with many fans standing in the aisles next to the walls throughout the game. They brought plenty of noise to support both teams.
The Bearcats led for most of regulation by using a physical, aggressive defense that led to seven Bearcat steals and 13 O-G turnovers overall.
“Our defense was really good, especially our help defense,” said Spencerville coach Kevin Sensabaugh. “We really tried to get in the gaps and not let White get into the paint. I thought we did a pretty good job. He’s just a great player. He had 34, and I thought we did well on him. We didn’t let the other guys hurt us until the one three at the end.”
The Titans have practiced “Money” all year but really focused on it this week, McGlaughlin said.
“We’ve been working on that out-of-bounds, but we haven’t run it all year,” McGlaughlin said. “We call it ‘Money.’ We were saving it for a situation like this. It’s a really hard play to guard, and I’m just so proud of Alex Wagner to not just make the shot but to have the courage to take it. That’s a big-time shot late in the game.”
Ottawa-Glandorf 56, Spencerville 52, OT
Spencerville 14 15 9 12 2 — 52
Ottawa-Glandorf 17 8 12 13 6 — 56
SPENCERVILLE
Will Sensabaugh 9, Evan Osting 15, Grady Smith 2, Owen Sensabaugh 10, Carter Sudhoff 11, Carder Orr 5. Totals: 20-9-52.
OTTAWA-GLANDORF
Alex Wagner 3, Grant Schroeder 6, Dave Westrick 5, Colin White 34, Caden Erford 7. Totals: 21-10-56.
3-pointers: S-Osting 2, W.Sensabaugh 1; O-G-White 2, Erford 1, Wagner 1.
Reach David Trinko at 567-242-0467 or on Twitter @Lima_Trinko.
