The Daily Standard
Story Archive
WAPAKONETA - Midwest Athletic Conference rivals Marion Local and Coldwater will meet in a rare tournament showdown Friday to decide the Division VI district at Wapakoneta.
In the first of two semifinals Wednesday evening, Coldwater scored the game's final seven points to knock off top-seeded Spencerville 49-40, while the Flyers rode a hot start in the nightcap and held off New Bremen, 40-30.
"I don't know if Marion Local and Coldwater have ever played in a tournament basketball game, because we're usually in different divisions," Marion Local coach Kurt Goettemoeller said. "It's going to be a physical game with two physical teams. The environment is going to be great. You have two big time rivals going at it, and that's exactly what you want your season to come down to."
Coldwater's Owen Kunk (21) pulls the ball away from Spencerville's Jude Stemen during Wednesday's district semifinal at Wapakoneta.
Coldwater (16-7) was able to slow down the high-scoring Bearcats (21-3) and then put the game away in crunch time.
Spencerville's Will Sensabaugh scored the game's first four points, but the Cavaliers countered with the next eight and were able to maintain a 12-8 advantage after the first quarter.
The Bearcats tied the game at 14-14 midway though the second quarter. Brady Lefeld and Mason Welsch answered for the Cavs, and when Landon Knapke hit the game's first three-pointer with six seconds left in the half, Coldwater had built a 21-15 advantage at the break.
"I was tickled to death that we could hold them to 15 points in the first half," Coldwater coach Nick Fisher said. "I thought there were some things that didn't go our way, but we did a good job defensively against a very dynamic team."
Coldwater's Baylen Blockberger (5) goes up for a shot as Spencerville's Grady Smith defends.
Baylen Blockberger scored the first bucket of the second half to push the Cavs' lead to 23-15. Spencerville came to life with 10 unanswered points to take its first lead since early in the first quarter, 25-23.
Blockberger then took charge and quickly extinguished the Bearcats' momentum. The Coldwater senior scored eight points in the final two minutes of the third quarter to give the Cavs a 31-28 advantage heading into the fourth.
"That's Baylen being Baylen. That's what he does," Fisher said. "And the guys know it, and they feed off of that too."
Coldwater never surrendered the lead in the fourth quarter. Spencerville pulled to within two, 42-40 with 1:53 left to play. The Cavs worked a couple long possessions and out-scored the Cats 7-0 over the final 52 seconds.
The crunch-time poise came as no surprise to Fisher.
"This is a senior laden group that have been through a lot of different tests in different sports," he said. "I think they're accustom to it."
Blockberger finished with a game-high 23 points for the Cavaliers. Owen and Will Sensabaugh finished with 15 and 13 points respectively for Spencerville.
Marion Local's Grant Kremer sets up to take a shot against New Bremen.
Marion Local (22-2) took advantage of six New Bremen (11-13) turnovers and 3-for-3 shooting behind the arc to burst out to a 21-8 first-quarter lead against the Cardinals.
The Flyers cooled down considerably in the second quarter, going the first four and-a-half minutes without scoring. But New Bremen couldn't make up much ground.
Marion's Austin Niekamp and Daniel Everman combined for the final six points of the half, and the Flyers still had a comfortable 27-12 lead to talk about at halftime.
Marion cooled down even further in the third quarter, scoring just four points and allowing the Cardinal to get within single digits.
"This game is the exact opposite of the first time we played them," Goettemoeller said. "We were down 10-5 after the first quarter, and we kind of settled in against their zone and ended up winning by 18. Tonight we had a great start and then the rest of the time they stagnated us."
New Bremen got as close as five, 33-28 with 4:20 left in the game, but Niekamp hit a big three-pointer from the corner to rebuild the lead back to eight, and from there the Flyers were able to hit just enough free throws to hold the Cardinals at bay.
"At this time of year, it's just finding a way to win," Goettemoeller said. "Once we got to the fourth quarter, we staved off their run. Austin hit a huge three there, that put us back up by eight."
New Bremen's Jaylen Powell drives to the basket.
After connecting on their first three-point shots of the game, the Flyers went zero for their next 10 before Niekamp hit the fourth-quarter trey.
"Your offense is not going to be there every night, but you have to hang your hat on defense and that's what this program does," Goettemoeller added. "No matter how you're playing on offense, your defense is going to keep it close and win you big tournament games."
Niekamp finished with 15 points to lead all scorers. Kale Ahrens added 10 for the Flyers, while Gavin Dicke paced the Cardinals with 10.
