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Celina's Braylon Gabes (middle) tries to break free from Van Wert's Colin Haggerty (24) and Conner Campbell during Tuesday's Division II sectional boys basketball game at the Fieldhouse.
CELINA - The first opponent of the season for the Celina boys basketball team was Van Wert.
The Cougars were bound and determined to make themselves bookends and end the Bulldogs' season in the opening game of the Division II tournament.
Celina, though, caught fire in the fourth quarter with a 19-0 run to pull away for the 61-41 victory on Tuesday night at the Fieldhouse.
The Bulldogs (13-10) travel to Lappin Gymnasium on Friday to take on Shawnee in the sectional final. The Indians held off Celina 53-47 at the Fieldhouse in the regular season meeting on Jan. 5.
"That was obviously huge for us," said Celina coach Adam Johns. "We try to replicate the scenarios where you have to dig down deep. We were at that point in the third. We were scoring, but weren't where we needed to be defensively. We got that straightened away."
Celina's Caleb Gabes shoots over Van Wert's Rylan Miller (5) and Keaten Welch.
The game was the polar opposite of the first meeting on Dec. 15, when Celina jumped out to an early lead, only for Van Wert (4-19) to trim the margin down at the end for a 64-61 Bulldogs win.
"That's a credit to (Van Wert coach Ben) Laudick and his staff," said Johns. "(The loss) wasn't due to a lack of effort. They go through stretches like we did last year where you make a little bit of a run, then have a bad turnover and can't get a basket. That's what happened to them."
Until the final minute of the third quarter, the teams slugged it out with neither getting more than a possession's advantage. Celina led 12-10 after the first quarter, but had to play much of the second with Braylon Gabes on the bench after he picked up a second personal foul.
Van Wert took a 20-19 lead on a Colin Haggerty free throw with 1:14 remaining in the half, but Lennon Cisco knocked down a 3-pointer to put Celina in front 22-20. Rylan Miller tied the game again, but Kaiden Werntz put in a bucket with 22 seconds left to give Celina a 24-22 lead going to the half.
The Bulldogs never relinquished the lead in the second half, but the Cougars continued to stay on their heels. A Conner Campbell trey got Van Wert within one at 28-27, but Celina stayed two to four points ahead until 10 seconds remaining in the quarter, when Braylon Gabes knocked down a trey to make the score 43-37.
Celina's Jack Knapke goes to the basket against Van Wert.
That proved to be the trigger for the Bulldogs pulling away. Caleb Gabes followed with a trey of his own 32 seconds into the fourth quarter to make it 46-37. Grant Duncan, the Gabes twins and Jake Knapke kept coming up with score after score until the score was 59-37 with 3:22 remaining in the contest. Haggerty snapped a six-minute cold spell with the Cougars' first bucket of the quarter with 2:40 to play, but Van Wert had just one more basket the rest of the way as both Johns and Laudick cleared the benches for the final moments of the game.
"You could tell the kids were getting comfortable, especially when we were getting up and down (the floor) in the third," said Johns. "That's when we're at our best - when we're in transition flying around."
Braylon Gabes scored 14 of his game-high 21 points in the second half with brother Caleb adding seven of his 20 in the fourth quarter. Werntz had seven points to go with 13 rebounds.
Campbell finished with 18 points for Van Wert.
