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Celina's Braylon Gabes (3) shoots over Bath's Mitch Barr during Wednesday's Division II sectional boys basketball game at Paulding. Gabes scored 10 of the first 12 Bulldog points en route to Celina's 49-36 win over the Wildcats.
PAULDING - At times this season, the Celina boys basketball team has struggled with slow starts.
Wednesday night, the Bulldogs came out of the blocks like Usain Bolt, taking a 14-3 lead in the first quarter and never looking back to defeat Bath 49-36 in the Division II sectional tournament at Paulding High School.
The win sends Celina (4-19) into Friday's 6 p.m. sectional final against top-seeded Defiance. The Bulldogs snapped an eight-game losing streak, with the last win coming against Bath on Jan. 20 by a 44-40 margin in Bath Township.
The Gabes brothers sparked the hot start for Celina. Caleb Gabes opened the scoring with a layup 39 seconds into the game, followed by 10 straight points from Braylon Gabes to put the Bulldogs up 12-3.
Celina's Caleb Gabes drives to the basket during Wednesday's game with Bath.
Jake Knapke scored the first non-Gabes bucket for Celina with 1:21 remaining in the first quarter to make it 14-3 Bulldogs before Zavier Tickle hit a 3-pointer to end Celina's 10-0 run.
"That gave them a little bit of confidence, which is good," said Celina coach Adam Johns. "I mentioned Friday that we attacked St. Marys in the second half. That carried over to our mentality tonight. Except for a couple, our shots were inside the paint - not always layups, but in the paint. That was the kids continuing to be aggressive."
Celina's Landen Ackley shoots a 3-pointer against Bath on Wednesday in Paulding.
The Bulldogs kept moving ahead in the second quarter, going up 22-8 on Landen Ackley's trey with 2:48 to play in the half. Appropriately, Caleb Gabes provided the final points of the half with a bucket to give Celina a 26-10 lead at the half. Celina was 12-of-20 from the field in the opening 16 minutes (60%).
Bath (4-18), which shot just 3-of-22 from the floor in the opening half (13.6%), tried to get back into the game right from the start of the third quarter. Trey Crawford's hoop-and-harm 3-point play allowed the Wildcats to get closer to Celina. The Bulldogs still led 38-23 after three quarters, but Bath had some momentum building into the fourth quarter.
A trey from Jaxon Foster with 6:14 to play made it 40-29. After Cole Craddock got a bucket to get Bath's deficit down to single digits, his brother Drake Craddock dialed up a trey with 4:50 to go to get Bath within six at 40-34. Braylon Gabes snapped Bath's run with a bucket 50 seconds later, but Cole Craddock scored to get it to 42-36.
"(Bath) was going to hit some shots," said Johns. "They got into the bonus pretty quick and were getting to the foul line. They were being a little more aggressive coming out of the locker room. We anticipated that, but you can only do so much."
Neither team scored on its next possessions, but Celina broke through with Braylon Gabes getting a hoop-and-harm trey to get Celina up by nine with just over two minutes to play. After Bath went scoreless on its next possession, Knapke put the game out of reach with a bucket. Kaiden Werntz closed out the scoring with free throws with 32 seconds remaining.
"Braylon had a big And-1," said Johns. "Then we got another stop."
Celina's hot shooting did not cool down in the second half as the Bulldogs shot 20-of-36 from the floor (55.6%) and outrebounded the Wildcats 34-21.
Braylon Gabes paced Celina with a game-high 21 points. Caleb Gabes added 15 points.
Cole Craddock led Bath with 13 points.
