Bulldogs get past Flyers; Redskins defeat backyard rival Cavs in consolation game

CELINA - Jay Imwalle learned some valuable lessons from his Celina sqaud's first meeting with Marion Local just over a week ago.

Tuesday night in the finals of the Asset Allocation Associates Holiday Tournament, the Bulldogs put those lessons to practice and came away with the championship with a 46-39 win over the Flyers at the Palace in Coldwater.

In the consolation game, St. Henry used a 10-0 run in the first half to go ahead of Coldwater and then pulled away in the second half for a 55-40 win for third place.
Championship Game
Celina 46, Marion Local 39

The first time the teams met on Dec. 19 at the Hangar in Maria Stein, Derek Albers put together a scoring clinic with 32 points as Marion beat Celina.

Tuesday, Imwalle put a shadow on Albers for much of the game in the form of 6-9 senior Christian Berry. Albers was just 1-of-10 from the floor, 0-of-5 from the three-point line, and finished with six points.

"Derek killed us the first time we played. We put Christian on him because of his length to make it a little tougher to shoot over," said Imwalle.

"When you have a 6-9 kid that has the ability to defend on the perimeter like he does, it made life very difficult for Derek," Marion coach Kurt Goettemoeller said. "Jay switched the matchups a little bit and that hurt us."

Celina took the lead for good at 5-4 with three minutes left in the opening quarter on a Kole Murlin bucket. After Albers hit a free throw to make it 7-5 Celina, the Flyers went scoreless for nearly seven minutes and Celina went on an 11-0 run. While Berry and Murlin hit field goals, Celina did damage from the foul line. Caleb Hoyng was 6-of-6 in the quarter from the stripe, scoring nine in the quarter and nearly outscoring Marion himself in the first half 14-15 as Celina led 24-15 at the half. Celina, which had trouble with turnovers early, took just 13 shots in the first half, making seven, but was 8-of-10 from the line.

"We turned the ball over six out of our first seven possessions," Imwalle said. "Once we took care of the basketball, we were okay. We got some decent looks."

Despite Marion's outscoring Celina 6-4 to cut Celina's lead to 28-21, the third quarter was a bit of a defensive crawl. The teams went over three minutes at one point without scoring a point.

Berry began to pick up his own offense in the final quarter after scoring just four points in the first half and going scoreless in the third quarter. Berry scored on three straight possessions to put Celina into a double-digit lead at 34-23 just 2 1/2 minutes into the final stanza. Marion came back with baskets from Tyler Mescher and Cole Griesdorn to cut the lead to 34-28 in a span of a minute, but Celina kept hitting buckets and free throws down the stretch to fend off the Flyers.

"Defensively, the kids play hard. To a fan, it was probably an ugly game," Imwalle said. "Kurt's kids played their tails off (defensively). When you have two teams doing that, the offensive end of the floor isn't going to look pretty.

"I think we ended up 16-of-23 (from the foul line). Not quite where we wanted to be, but the last two games we shot free throws much better."

"With the limited practices (due to the football run), we were basically trying to draw up a few plays in the dirt. They were really stymieing us in our base offense," Goettemoeller said. "We didn't have many options. I told the guys to stay positive because we'll get a ton better."

Berry and Hoyng each scored 16 points to lead Celina and shared the tournament's Most Valuable Player award. Murlin joined the All-Tournament team along with Mescher, who finished with 14 points against Celina, St. Henry's Mitchel Stammen and Coldwater's Andy Brunet.
Consolation Game
St. Henry 55, Coldwater 40

Coldwater jumped out and took a 10-7 lead on a Jack Hemmelgarn bucket with three minutes left in the opening quarter. St. Henry responded with a 10-0 run on buckets from Blake Hoyng and Ryan Bruening along with free throws from Mitchel Stammen to make it 17-10 with 6:16 left in the second quarter.

"Guys did a great job pressuring their guards and making (Coldwater's) guards run the offense from 25-26 feet (from the basket)," St. Henry Eric Rosenbeck said.

The Redskin defense played tough in the paint, taking Cavalier big man Brunet out of his game. Brunet had just three points in the first half, although he did dominate on the boards.

"He's an excellent basketball player," Rosenbeck said of Brunet. "We got beat up on the boards (36-26 advantage for Coldwater), but anyone that watched the game would say we fought hard for this one tonight."

St. Henry pushed the lead into double digits in the third quarter as the Cavaliers tried to find some consistent offense. The Redskins led 40-30 after three quarters and pulled away by five more points in the final quarter.

"Last night we got sloppy. We had 12 or 13 turnovers that were live-ball turnovers that led to layups for Marion," Rosenbeck said. "Our turnovers tonight were limited (nine)"

Stammen led the Redskins with 19 points. Hoyng added 11 points and Even Lefeld finished with 10. Jesse Niekamp had seven points and 12 rebounds.

Brunet finished with 11 points and 16 rebounds. Neal Muhlenkamp also finished with 11.