SPENCERVILLE – Friday night at the Walk-In Closet the Bearcats ended the game on a 44-16 run in a 71-43 victory over visiting Ada to give head coach Kevin Sensabaugh his 250th career victory.
Ada jumped out to an 18-12 lead at the end of the first quarter with hot shooting as the Bulldogs finished 7/10 from the field and 4/6 from behind the three point line. Triples by Spencer Wells, Grant Preston, and Ethan Murphy pushed the purple and gold ahead of their hosts who were unable to knock down their own takes early on.
“In the first quarter we were so anxious to get out and get up we took a lot of shots that weren’t going in” said Sensabaugh following the game.
Six players saw shots fall in rapid succession for the Bearcats in the second quarter, led by sophomore Evan Osting who pulled Spencerville within 18-15 early with a triple from deep that prompted his head coach to say “Evan Osting has been shooting the lights out lately”.
Now in an offensive shootout but playing from behind, the Bulldogs scratched to even on a pair of trips down the floor from Spencer Wall who finished off his 13th and final marker of the game with 2:53 to make it a 23-23 contest.
Gage Hoffer pushed the visitors back ahead on the scoreboard 27-25 with 1:40 to go in the half with a basket that would prove to be one of the last two makes for Ada for quite some time.
Spencerville finished the half on a run of makes from the free throw line by Josh Henline, a two from Dylan Smith, and a triple by Dylan Cook with under a minute to take a 33-29 halftime lead into the locker room.
Defensively Spencerville took over in the third quarter as the Bearcats allowed just one point, a free throw by Ethan Murphy with :45 seconds to go while themselves stretching into hyper speed scoring mode. Dylan Smith and Eli Harter led the offense with a combined 13 point effort and again mixed in a triple by Osting to take a 53-30 lead into the final eight minutes.
Ada’s first field goal of the second half cue the deficit to 58-32 on a make by junior Jaden Leal but the Bearcats continued to toss in their own at a frantic pace with freshman Blake Sommers leading the assault with seven of his 11 points.
Once the dust of the fourth quarter settled the Bearcats secured themselves their third straight victory over the Bulldogs with a dominating defensive performance and scores from 11 players on the evening.
Ada (4-16, 0-7) was led by Spencer Wall with 13 and will next be in action on Saturday night in Lima against Temple Christian before finishing up their regular season with Lincolnview next Friday at home.
Kevin Sensabaugh said of his teams defensive effort “We gambled a lot defensively missed a lot of assignments in the first half. In the second half we stopped chasing and overplaying and settled down and played more gap sound the way I envisioned”.
Spencerville moves to 17-3 overall and 5-2 in Northwest Conference games. Next up for the Bearcats is a Saturday night date in Rockford and a Friday evening Battle of Route 66 league clash with Delphos Jefferson to round out the regular campaign. Dylan Smith led all scorers with 16 as one of three Bearcats in double figures.
Scoring:
Spencerville (71):
Josh Henline 2
Evan Osting 11
Dylan Smith 16
Nathan Coulter 4
Cade Elling 2
Carter Sudhoff 6
Tyler Koenig 4
Eli Harter 7
Dylan Cook 5
Carder Orr 3
Blake Sommers 11
FT: 11/17
3PT: 6 (Osting 3, Smith, Cook, Sommers)
TO: 5
Ada (43):
Jacob Sutherly 2
Jaden Leal 6
Spencer Wall 13
Grant Preston 7
Ethan Murphy 8
Gage Hoffer 7
FT: 7/12
3PT: 6 (Wall 3, Preston 2, E. Murphy)
TO: 19
JV: 65-33 Spencerville