Early struggles hamper Celina in regional loss

BOWLING GREEN - Despite a tremendous late comeback by Celina to whittle a double-digit deficit to three points, Defiance held on for a 48-43 win in the Division II regional semifinals at the Stroh Center on the campus of Bowling Green State University Thursday night.

Defiance (24-2) advances to Saturday's regional final at 4 p.m. against Parma Heights Holy Name. The Green Wave (17-9) defeated Sandusky 65-57 in the first semifinal of the evening.

Celina, playing in the regional for the first time since 2011 and just the fifth time since 1971, ends a tremendous season at 22-4, two wins shy of tying the 1971-72 team's school record of 24 wins.

A slow start was something that Celina did not want to experience against Defiance. Unfortunately, that was exactly what happened as Celina went scoreless for the first four minutes of the game before Grant Laffin was able to get a layup to fall with 4:04 left in the period. Defiance took advantage with buckets from brothers Katwan and Kameron Singleton and Shay Smiddy to go up 6-0 early. After Laffin's score, Wes Detter hit the first of three first-half 3-pointers to make it 9-2 after one quarter.

"Causing some turnovers in the first half was a big factor in the game," Defiance coach Kirk Lehman said, noting the eventual 16 turnovers Celina committed in the game.

Celina struggled against Defiance's physical defensive pressure. Ryan Hoyng was guarded closely by Katwan Singleton for most of the night and picked up two early fouls that hampered his play. Defiance looked primed to hold Celina to single digits through 16 minutes before Eric Moeder hit a 3-pointer at the buzzer to make it 20-11 at halftime.

"The physicality caught us off-guard a little bit," Celina coach Chris Bihn said. "We talked about it, but it's hard to explain in words until you get out there to see it. They definitely delivered the first blow and it took us a little while to recover."

Celina came out strong to start the second half, scoring four straight points to cut the Defiance lead to 20-15. Defiance, though, quickly restored order with an 10-3 run to get the lead back up to double digits at 30-18 before Celina cut it back to 30-20 after three quarters.

Shay Smiddy started the fourth quarter for Defiance with a three-pointer to make it 33-20 before Celina began to make one last charge at getting back into the game. Ryan Hoyng, held to just to two points through three quarters, started Celina's charge with a three-pointer with 4 1/2 minutes to make it 35-29.

Defiance began to go to the foul line with regularity as Celina was forced to start fouling to stop the clock. However, Celina kept whittling away until Moeder's 3-pointer with 1:23 made it 41-38. Defiance pushed the lead back up to 44-38 with three straight free throws, but Caleb Hoyng hit another trey with 45.7 seconds left to make it 44-41. Unfortunately for Celina, Defiance kept hitting enough free throws to stay at least two possessions ahead with time winding down to hold on for the win.

"I think our guys did a great job to figure it out and played a whale of a second half," Bihn said. "Great comeback, but it fell a little short."

"I thought our guys kept their composure, stayed tough and handled the basketball very well," Lehman said. "(Point guard) Michael Menendez, a sophomore in a regional semifinal game, came up awfully big. Made some great decisions and handled the basketball."

The free throw line proved to be the major difference. Defiance was 16-of-24 from the stripe. Celina went to the line just six times, making only two.

"We didn't figure out how to get to the line more," Bihn said. "That was huge."

Katwan Singleton led Defiance with 17 points and nine rebounds. Kameron Singleton and Detter each scored 10.

Caleb Hoyng led Celina with 14 points and 10 rebounds. Ryan Hoyng, Celina's all-time leading scorer, finished his stellar career with 10 points, eight of which came in the final quarter.

"It would be hard to find another game with that effort defensively," Lehman said. "Our activeness on Ryan Hoyng was tremendous. To hold a great player like him to two points ... for the longest of times, you have to give credit to Katwan and credit to our team defense."