Third quarter rally paces Celina over Cardinals

The Celina Bulldogs girls basketball team used a huge third quarter to rally from a 12-point hole and post a 51-45 non-conference victory over the New Bremen Cardinals Saturday afternoon at the Fieldhouse.

With the win Celina improves to 2-1 on the season. The loss drops New Bremen to 1-2.

Leading by five at the half, 25-20, New Bremen quickly built its lead to 12, 32-20, 21/2 minutes into the second half as Jackie Niekamp hit a three and Caitlin Chaney hit a pair of short jumpers,

At this point Celina roared back as they outscored New Bremen 21-5 over the final five minutes of the period to take a 41-37 lead by the end of the period.

The Bulldog rally was fueled by defense, great free throw shooting and some nice play off the bench. Defensively, Celina used a combination of half court and three quarters court pressure to up tempo the game and they were able to rush the New Bremen offense into just three shots and nine turnovers in the final five minutes of the period.

Celina used its aggression on the defensive end to fuel things on the offensive end as they began to take the ball to the basket and as a result they were able to get easy baskets and get chances at the free throw line.

Of the six baskets that Celina scored in the third period, four came from inside the paint and the other two were three-point field goals. The Bulldogs also went to the line 10 times in the period, connecting on eight of them.

"New Bremen came out and played very aggressively in the first half and they had us on our heels, our girls were not quite ready to play," said Celina coach Brian Stetler. "It was good for our girls to see that they needed to step it up and make things happen, sometimes you can do that and not get anything out of it and that is what happened in the first half, we gave the effort but did not get the things done that we needed to get done."

"Our inexperience showed there at the start of the second half," said New Bremen coach Dave McFeely. "We are not going to get that experience over night and it showed because it seemed like we tried to speed up the game and the game got too fast for us and they took advantage of that. With that they were able to get the foul line a lot in the quarter and they shot a tremendous percentage."

Celina got a lift off the bench as they got five points from freshman Kylee Bader, including a three point field goal. The Bulldogs built its lead to 11 early in the final period as bench players Amanda Hoying hit a three and Tracy Donovan hit a lay-in. On the afternoon, Celina got 12 points and three rebounds off the bench.

"We got nice spark off the bench from Amanda Hoying and Kylee Bader," said Stetler. "What I like about this team is that we have a lot of people who can come off the bench and you don't who it is going to be, a guard or a big. If we are going to continue to be successful we are going to continue to have to have that kind of production from our bench, because some nights are starters are not going to have it and it was nice to get that extra help off the bench today."

Yoder and Welker led Celina with 14 points each. Yoder also grabbed a game-high 12 rebounds.
Cheney led the way with New Bremen with a career high 18 points on 9-of-11 from the field. Niekamp and Timri Saddler each chipped in 10 points. Saddler also added a team-high nine rebounds.

Celina is back in action on Thursday as they continue their season opening home stand as they play host to Ottawa-Glandorf in their Western Buckeye League opener. New Bremen is also in action on Thursday as they open their Midwest Athletic Conference schedule on the road at Fort Recovery.