Hanging on for the title

CELINA - To use an analogy from another sport, Celina felt like a football team defending a goal line stand in the fourth quarter of the 37th OVISCO Classic.

"It felt like that the whole second half!" said Celina coach Bret Baucher after the Bulldogs held on for a 30-27 victory over Coldwater in the final edition of the annual girls basketball tournament on Thursday night at the Fieldhouse.

The win is the third straight for Celina (3-5) after starting 0-5 and avenges a 52-31 season-opening loss to the Cavaliers on Nov. 22. Coldwater drops to 7-5.

"We've got a gauntlet coming up," said Baucher. "We play twice a week pretty much here on out against quality teams. I'd rather go into that where we are (now) than where we were at the start of the season."

In the consolation game, Marion Local bounced back from Tuesday's loss to Celina and defeated St. Henry for the second time this season, 40-35.

CHAMPIONSHIP GAME

Celina 30, Coldwater 27

Neither team could get more than a four-point clearance throughout the game as the contest saw six ties and eight lead changes.

Celina focused its defense on containing the Cavaliers' Riley Rismiller, who had 24 points in the semifinal win over St. Henry.

"We continued with our gameplan we used on Tuesday with Lindsey Koenig," said Baucher. "We made sure we had someone assigned to her at all times. We wanted to be physical and make sure she had to use her teammates to beat us."

Coldwater went into the half up 16-13 as Emma May hit a 3-pointer with 3:07 remaining in the half and neither team could add to their total before the break.

Peyton Bertke got the second half started for Celina with a bucket to get within one, only to have Becca Wenning make it a three-point game again with six minutes remaining in the quarter. Taylor Klingshirn drained a trey to tie the game with 5½ minutes to play, but it took over 2½ minutes for Kenlee Holstad to put Celina in front with a bucket with 2:52 left in the third.

Rachel Rammel extended the margin to 22-18 with 76 seconds remaining, but buckets by Wenning and Mia Knapke tied the game again with 27 seconds left. Bertke stepped up again, getting the hoop-and-harm 3-point play with 19.1 seconds remaining in the quarter to give Celina a 25-22 lead. Kelci Siefring hit a free throw to close out the quarter to cut the Cavalier deficit to 25-23.

A Kyilla Billingsley free throw less than a minute into the fourth extended the Celina lead to 26-23, but Coldwater came back with a bucket by Claire Steinke followed by two Rismiller free throws to give Coldwater at 27-26 lead with 4½ minutes to play. Rismiller picked up her fourth personal foul with 3:38 to go. Celina missed out on a chance to tie when Rammel missed a pair of free throws, but Klingshirn scored on a stickback with 2:53 left to give the Bulldogs a 28-27 lead.

Coldwater tried to go ahead with a 3-pointer but missed and Klingshirn rebounded. Coldwater then had to foul several times to put the Bulldogs in the bonus as Celina worked the clock down to 46.7 seconds before Rammel went to the stripe for the one-and-bonus. Rammel missed and Coldwater rebounded. The Cavaliers tried looking for Rismiller, but had to burn their final two timeouts looking for a play.

With 4.7 seconds, the inbounds attempt to Rismiller was high and went out. Coldwater fouled Klingshirn, who calmly sank both free throws with three seconds remaining to ice the game.

"The girls just played their tails off," said Baucher. "They did everything we asked of them. They played phenomenal defense, rebounded and were super-physical. They made all the little plays we had to (make) to win the game. Just super-proud of their performance."

"Our shooting was terrible," said Coldwater coach Amy Meyer, whose squad was 11-of-36 from the floor. "No flow to the game. We were unable to get any consistency on the offensive end. I felt (Celina) played a lot harder. I thought they outrebounded us. They just outplayed us in many aspects."

Klingshirn finished with 11 points - seven in the second half - to go with 13 rebounds. Bertke also had 11 points.

Wenning and Rismiller each finished with six points for Coldwater.

CONSOLATION GAME

Marion Local 40, St. Henry 35

The two teams needed overtime to decide the winner when they played their conference tilt on Dec. 15, a 52-49 win for the Flyers.

In the rematch, the Flyers (9-2) led 10-2, but the Redskins clawed their way back to cut the margin to 20-16 at the half, then tie the game at 20-20 on a Rileigh Baumer bucket less than three minutes into the third quarter. The Flyers were able to reclaim the lead and were up 27-25 after three quarters before St. Henry started the fourth quarter with a Morgan Baumer bucket 20 seconds into the period to tie the game again.

Ninety seconds elapsed before Jenna Knapke broke the tie for Marion with a bucket, followed by Avae Unrast adding a bucket with 4:29 to play to make it a 31-27 lead. St. Henry got within two twice and was down 38-35 with 7.2 seconds to play, but Stella Huelsman applied the coup de grâce with 5.2 seconds to play, hitting two free throws to close out the scoring.

"We played a little better defensively. We switched to the zone in the second half, which kept them out of the paint a little bit," said Flyers coach Beth Streib. "We hit shots when we needed to. We were well-balanced again."

Marion Local's Lindsey Koenig finished with 10 points to lead all scorers. Huelsman added nine points with Chloe Ronnebaum finishing with eight.

Morgan Baumer scored eight to lead St. Henry (6-5).

ALL-TOURNAMENT TEAM

Klingshirn, Bertke, Rismiller and Wenning were joined by Ronnebaum and St. Henry's Jalynn Everman on the All-Tournament team.

NEXT GAMES

Celina and Marion Local will face each other again on Tuesday at the Fieldhouse. Coldwater returns to MAC play next Thursday at New Bremen comes to the Palace. St. Henry also returns to action Thursday, traveling to Minster for a conference contest.