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WAPAKONETA - The St. Henry boys basketball team earned an upset and Marion Local narrowly dodged one, setting up a third meeting of the Redskins and the Flyers in the Division IV Wapakoneta district final.
The Redskins rode pinpoint outside shooting and a strong all-around effort to a 58-45 victory over New Bremen in the first game at Redskin Gymnasium on Tuesday, and Marion Local survived a slugfest for a 35-34 win over Fort Recovery in the nightcap.
"You have to survive a game like this if you want to go on a great tournament run," Marion coach Kurt Goettemoeller said. "We're going to be playing a great St. Henry team that has really improved, so we're going to have our hands full Friday…
"This Wapak district is so tough because it's all league teams, and they all know each other so well. You're playing each other a second, and now St. Henry a third, time. So it's just difficult."
Marion won the first two games, 64-60 in the Asset Allocation Associates Holiday Classic on Dec. 31 and 68-52 at the Hangar on Jan. 24. The district final is at 7 p.m. Friday. Fort Recovery ends its season at 15-10 and New Bremen finishes at 16-8.
Fort Recovery's Cale Rammel takes a shot as Marion Local's Tate Hess (12) and Luke Pohlman defend in the Division IV district semifinals at Redskin Gymnasium in Wapakoneta on Tuesday.
After the Flyers took a six-point halftime lead, the Indians started chipping away. Daniel Patch hit a pull-up jump shot along the baseline to make it a four-point game, then added a trey from the top of the key, and Cale Rammel hit a free throw to tie the game at 22 with 5:11 left in the third.
Tate Hess grabbed the rebound on the second, and 37 seconds later, he kicked the ball out to Jadyn Mescher, who hit a corner three to put Marion back on top.
"Tate's our playmaker," Goettemoeller said. "He got in the guts of our zone and fed Jack a couple times, he also fed Austin a couple times. So those were big plays in the game, and then he had to guard Rammel the whole game. So he was definitely worn out by the end, but Tate's our leader, that's for sure."
A Luke Pohlman trey with 89 seconds to go in the third restored the Flyers' six-point lead, but Rex Leverette answered with a layup to make it a four-point game going into the fourth.
Patch found Rammel on a cut along the baseline to make it 30-28 with 7:06 left, and after three scoreless minutes, Rammel escaped a trap along the baseline, retreated behind the arc, and swished a three to put the Indians ahead with 3:51 to go.
"To be in the game like we were, it was awesome," Fort Recovery coach Bob Leverette said. "We executed everything we wanted to do, except the end."
Rammel missed two free throws with a chance to extend the lead, Rex Leverette only got one on a one-and-one opportunity, and Tate Hess split three defenders on a drive to the hoop to tie the game with 55.1 seconds left.
Fort Recovery's Troy Homan (10) pulls down the rebound as Marion Local's Jadyn Mescher (11) tries to take it away.
Rammel drew a foul on the other end and hit both ends of the one-and-one with 46.2 seconds to go, but Hess found Mescher in the corner again and Mescher drained a three with 33.1 seconds remaining to put Marion in front.
That left Fort Recovery with a chance to get the last shot, and coach Leverette called timeout with 7.3 seconds left to set up a play. The pass went to Rammel on the right side, and he dribbled toward the lane before sending up a fadeaway jumper through contact. Jack Knapke grabbed the rebound and the buzzer sounded, but the refs gathered for a discussion and coach Leverette remonstrated that a foul should've been called.
In the end, a foul was called on Rex Leverette, who had his arms wrapped around Knapke before the buzzer, and one second was added for Marion to inbound the ball. Mescher went deep for a football-length pass, kept his feet in the sideline, and hugged the ball as the buzzer sounded again.
"We were trying to get Cale closer to the block, but obviously they bodied him all the way out," coach Leverette said. "Then when he spun and got to the middle, we'll take that jump shot from him every day of the week and twice on Sundays.
"Tough way to end. Very tough way to end."
Fort Recovery led by six early in the second quarter with a 1-2-2 zone limiting the Flyers, but Marion got back in with some big threes. With Hess distributing, Mescher and Austin Niekamp knocked down back-to-back threes from the left corner to tie the game at 14, and after Rammel laid in a shot off an inbounds pass, Niekamp hit another from the right elbow to give Marion its first lead of the game.
With the Flyers still ahead by one with 1:20 to go, Hess kicked the ball out to Niekamp again, and he hit his third three to extend the lead.
"When we didn't have things going, Austin hit three big threes to keep us not only in the game, but we built a six-point halftime lead," Goettemoeller said. "I thought we were standing pretty well at half. We had the ball to start the second half, I thought, 'We're going to build this lead and be okay,' and obviously the opposite happened."
Rammel, in his final game with the Indians, scored 19 points and pulled down five rebounds. Niekamp led the Flyers with 11.
"We told them coming in, 'This is going to take a great effort,'" coach Leverette said. "Had a pretty good gameplan, been working on it for the last month or so hoping that we'd get here to see Marion. Thought we executed it great.
"We just wanted the lead at the end or have a shot to win it at the end. We had a shot to win at the end. Maybe he got fouled, maybe he didn't - I'm thinking he did - but you know what, if we make some free throws earlier, it doesn't come down to that shot."
St. Henry's Luke Beyke grabs a rebound away from New Bremen's Hayden Zeller.
An Evan Bowers three gave the Redskins the lead for good with three minutes left in the first quarter, and Logan Link and Luke Beyke added perimeter shots to give St. Henry (14-11) a 17-11 lead after the first quarter.
David Homan did his best to keep the Cardinals in the game with eight points in just over two minutes in the second quarter, but Devin Delzeith hit a trey that kept the Redskins in the lead. After New Bremen cut it to 22-21, Beyke hit a contested three and Bowers added one from the corner in an 11-0 run.
All told, St. Henry shot 6-of-10 from beyond the arc in the first half.
"Really, really proud of Luke Beyke," St. Henry coach Eric Rosenbeck said. "He didn't feel the best the last 48 hours, and for him to take care of his body and be ready to go was big. And obviously Devin Delzeith was absolutely fantastic on every front: the kid had a double-double, he hit two threes, he had two assists and three steals. You can't ask for more from a kid."
Beyke added another contested three early in the third, and a Delzeith trey stretched the lead to 17 with two minutes left in the quarter before New Bremen made a run. David Homan found Evan Eyink for a layup, then kicked it out to Alex Homan for a trey from the left wing, and the lead stayed at 12 heading into the fourth.
Eyink got the Cardinals within 10 with 5 1/2 minutes left, then got open on the right elbow for a three that cut the lead to seven. Beyke answered with a pull-up jumper, but Aaron Thieman hit a free throw and David Homan got a layup to make it 51-45 with two minutes to go.
But with St. Henry resisting the temptation to chuck up shots, the Cardinals had to start fouling. The Redskins shot 7-of-8 from the line to close out the win.
Beyke scored 19 points and Delzeith added 12 with 10 rebounds. Bowers nabbed a game-high 14 rebounds, and St. Henry outrebounded New Bremen 39-28 for the game.
St. Henry's Caden Bergman (4) and New Bremen's Cooper Scheib (24) battle for the ball during Tuesday's Division IV district semifinal in Wapakoneta.
"They're athletic, they're strong, they go to the glass very well. That's how they beat us in game one," said Rosenbeck, whose team lost 73-63 to the Cardinals back on Jan. 20. "For us to be plus-11 on the glass, that's something we're really, really proud of.
"I thought it started clicking about three days ago in practice, that if we're going to beat this team, we've got to beat them on the glass. And they still got 14 offensive rebounds, which is a ton, but I didn't think it was for lack of effort from our kids. They're just that athletic and that talented."
David Homan had a game-high 21 points before fouling out in the last two minutes.
