Bulldogs outlast 'Riders

CELINA - One quick burst of daylight was all that Celina needed to take sole possession of first place in the Western Buckeye League.

A buzzer-beating three-pointer by Grant Laffin at the end of the first quarter triggered a dominating second quarter and the Bulldogs went on to beat St. Marys 59-49 in a battle of WBL unbeatens at a jam-packed Fieldhouse.

The win moves Celina to 12-2 on the season and 5-0 in the league. The loss ends a four-game winning streak for the Roughriders, who fall to 10-5 and 4-1.

St. Marys came out ready to play as Josh Young had the hot hand early with a pair of three-pointers to give his team leads of 3-0 and 6-4. After the Bulldogs battled to take the lead, Quinn Zaerr scored to tie the game at 11-all, but Laffin drained a three from the corner before the horn to put Celina up 14-11.

Ryan Hoyng, honored before the game after becoming the school's career scoring leader two weeks ago, started the second quarter with a hoop-and-harm three-point play to make it 17-11. Young continued to stay hot with his shooting, but Celina picked up several loose balls and kept play going with several offensive rebounds, leading to a 19-9 second-quarter run to take a 33-20 halftime lead.

"St. Marys does a nice job defensively," Celina coach Chris Bihn said. "We hit a couple shots to get a little bit of separation, which was something we needed to do. I don't know how many times St. Marys has had to play from behind this year so early. So we wanted to get out and see if they got excited, but they didn't.

"We thought we would beat (St. Marys) to (the loose balls and rebounds). We stressed that all week. ... Overall I thought we did a nice job getting to (the ball)."

"Our second quarter wasn't very good," St. Marys coach Dan Hegemier said. "Offensive rebounds and loose balls. We didn't get any. That's the name of the game."

The Bulldogs maintained a double-digit lead through the third quarter before St. Marys tried to make a run in the fourth quarter. Young, Nathan Wilker and Isaac Fitzgerald hit three early baskets to cut Celina's lead to 48-44 with 4:51 left to play, but Caleb Hoyng and Logan Delong came through with baskets to make it a three-possession game once again.

"At that point, St. Marys was trying to go faster and get into hurry-up mode," Bihn said. "I thought we did a nice job (getting into a defensive) stance and playing pretty good defense."

Young, who entered averaging 9.6 points per game, finished the night 6-of-8 from the three-point line for a game-high 24 points. Celina, though, shut down the Roughriders' other main scorers Derek Jay, who finished with six, nine under his average, and Zaerr, who was 4-of-4 from the field for eight points.

"The thing with St. Marys is they have so many shooters you have to do one of two things," Bihn said. "One is letting Zaerr have his way inside or let the shooters outside (have open shots)."

"Quinn scored every time he touched the ball, and we couldn't get it to him," Hegemier said.

"Hopefully, we can live and learn, come back tomorrow and see what we can get done."

Ryan Hoyng led Celina with 19 points, eight points coming in the fourth quarter. Laffin finished with 12 and Delong added 11.

Both teams return to action tonight. Celina travels to Convoy to play defending Division IV state champion Crestview and St. Marys returns home to Murotech Court to face Sidney.

WBL Standings:

WBL  Overall
Celina  5-0  12-2
Defiance  4-1  14-1
St. Marys  4-1  10-5
Ottawa-Glandorf  3-2  10-4
Elida  3-2  6-7
Wapakoneta  2-3  8-7
Van Wert  2-3  6-8
Shawnee  2-3  5-11
Kenton  0-5  4-11
Bath  0-5  3-11