DAYTON – Not only did the Titan faithful follow their squad to Dayton in massive numbers, the OG trademark defense did as well.
“I thought our girls were locked in on defense tonight and we were able to lock down our rotations” said Ottawa Glandorf boss Troy Yant.
OG forced 11 Portsmouth turnovers on Thursday night at UD Arena and outrebounded the Trojans 39-23 on the way to a 47-40 victory to earn a spot in the 2pm Saturday afternoon state finals against rival Africentric.
Senior Katie Kaufman led the way for Ottawa Glandorf (26-2) on the boards as she snagged 14 caroms for the second time in her last five games while scoring 10 points and finishing with a career high five blocks against an aggressive Trojans offense.
“The points are always nice, but every time we talked I told her “one and done” and Katie did an excellent job getting those rebounds” said Yant. “Those blocks, we don’t really talk about them but she likes them. At this point we just want to survive and get to the next game, and she did whatever she could to do help us do that.”
After falling behind 2-0 in the first minute of the game thanks to a pair of Sienna Allen free throws, the Titans raced out to a 6-2 lead on a triple from Kaitlyn Kimmet, free throws by Karsyn Erford, and a pair of tosses from Kaufman.
Early in the second period the Titan offense which “comes naturally, we don’t work on it a whole bunch” according to Kaufman hit their stride. Over the second eight minutes the blue and gold outscored Portsmouth 12-4 thanks to timely runouts and fast break baskets by Liv Grothause, Myka Aldrich, and Kimmet to take a 22-13 lead into the locker room.
Portsmouth managed just a pair of baskets from a pair of players in the middle two quarters while being forced to sit freshmen Keke Woods and Hayven Carter due to foul trouble.
Junior guard Carlie Brinkman, tasked with a majority of the ballhandling duties for the Titans against a heavy pressure from Portsmouth found her scoring spree fruitful for OG in the second half as she hit for all nine of her game markers to help send the lead to 37-27.
Portsmouth knocked down five three pointers in the fourth quarter with two each coming from Savannah Cantrell and Sienna Allen but were unable to get closer on the scoreboard before both Carter and Woods fouled out just before the end of the game.
Ottawa Glandorf was led in scoring by the duo of Kaufman and Grothause who each ended with 10 points. The mark for Grothause established a new career high for the sophomore and pushed head coach Troy Yant to remark “Liv has been showing what she can do the last couple of games and in practice, she’s been doing a lot of nice things for us. She’s a young skinny kid and I thought she played well in there and in on ball defense, she did a good job.”
Defensively the Titans relied on multiple players to shut down the Trojans big scorers including junior Megan Horstman that saw Yant remark postgame “I thought Megan Horstman did a great job coming in and giving us a great defensive effort and holding down what we needed to do to keep them from capitalizing on offense.”
Portsmouth’s first regional championship campaign comes to an end with a 22-6 mark. Sienna Allen led the Trojans with 12 points and was joined in double figures by Daysha Reid with 10.
Scoring:
OG (47):
Liv Grothause 10
Karsyn Erford 8
Carlie Brinkman 9
Katie Kaufman 10
Myka Aldrich 3
Kaitlyn Kimmet 7
FG: 17/44
3PT: 1/6 (Kimmet)
FT: 12/19
REB: 39 (13 Offensive – Kaufman 14)
TO: 12
Portsmouth (40):
Sienna Allen 12
Daysha Reid 10
Keke Woods 4
Hayven Carter 8
Savannah Cantrell 6
FG: 15/48
3PT: 6/22 (Allen 2, Carter 2, Cantrell 2)
FT: 4/4
REB: 23 (6 Offensive – Reid 8)
TO: 11