Riders move past Bulldogs

LIMA - For a moment, it looked like the magic Celina used to rally to victory against Kenton on Wednesday would hold up again on Friday against St. Marys.

The Bulldogs fell behind 14-0 early before cutting the margin to two late in the second quarter, but an Evan Angstmann 3-pointer before the first-half buzzer allowed the Roughriders to get some breathing room before pulling away again in the second half for a 52-28 victory in the Division II boys basketball sectional final at Lima Senior.

The Roughriders (15-7) travel to Ohio Northern University on Wednesday for a 5:30 p.m. district semifinal game against Wauseon, which defeated fourth-seeded Van Wert 56-53 in overtime in the nightcap in Lima. The late game at ONU pits Napoleon, which upset top-seeded Defiance 53-41 at Paulding on Friday, against Shawnee.

At the start, St. Marys was working both the inside and outside game. Austin Parks was working inside for field goals and, when fouled, making free throws. Angstmann and Gavin Reineke countered Parks' paint presence with some 3-pointers that had the score up to 14-0 with 2:40 left in the opening quarter. Braylon Gabes snapped Celina's 0-5 cold spell on shots with a 3-pointer from the corner with 2:19 remaining in the quarter, but Parks scored with 1:51 left to make it 16-3 at the end of the first quarter.

Celina (8-16) began to make its move in the second quarter as Gabes, Quinn Andrew and Dylan Feister hit big treys and Josh Rasawehr added points from the floor and foul line to go on a 13-2 run to get Celina to within two at 18-16 with 1:15 remaining in the half.

"Missed a couple shots inside and I thought we got tenative," said St. Marys coach Dan Hegemier. "Celina came down and dropped some shots and got it close."

St. Marys, though, got a boost at the end of the second as Angstmann knocked down a trey from the corner right before the buzzer to get the Roughriders to a 21-16 halftime lead.

"That sucked the wind out of the sails going to the locker room," said Celina coach Adam Johns of Angstmann's trey. "We had a chance for, at worst, a two point game. Now it's a two-possession, five-point game. We gave them some fits in the second quarter defensively. They missed some shots, we got the rebounds and hit some shots."

Angstmann continued his hot run by scoring the five points of the third quarter to move St. Marys to a 28-16 lead. Parks followed with free throws before Andrew scored with 4:50 remaining to stop the Rider run. By that point, however, St. Marys was moving. Celina got no closer the rest of the way as St. Marys outscored Celina 18-6 to take a 39-22 lead into the fourth quarter.

The Riders added on from there as Parks gave the blue and gold cheering section something to cheer about with a dunk midway through the fourth quarter. Both coaches cleared the benches late in the game to get the subs some tournament playing time.

"I liked our second half play," said Hegemier. "Defensively, I thought we did a pretty nice job (St. Marys held Celina to 28.6% field goal shooting and outrebounded 29-18 for the game)."

"Once they hit from the perimeter, it becomes a little more difficult because we weren't able to play our little junk defense (putting extra pressure on Parks)," said Johns. "Once they hold it, you have to go man and the poison is up there for the taking."

Parks finished with 18 points and 12 rebounds for St. Marys with Angstmann scoring 17 points.

Rasawehr wraps up his career with a 12-point night for Celina.