TOLEDO – Saturday afternoon’s meeting between a pair of state ranked teams needed overtime to determine a winner as Toledo Central Catholic held off visiting Ottawa Glandorf 56-51.
TCC, ranked #2 in Division 2 jumped ahead on the opening possession of the contest with a triple from senior Jada Dames and out to a 5-2 lead after a Katie Kaufman basket with 6:17 to go on a jumper from Corniya Clay as part of a 15-10 first stanza for the hosts.
Held to scoring from just Kaufman and Kaelyn Grothause in the opening eight minutes the Titans split their output across six players in the second while chasing the Irish lead. Baskets by Carlie Brinkman, Karsyn Erford, and Myka Aldrich on the fast break pushed Ottawa Glandorf into their first lead at 18-17 with five minutes to play in the half before the two teams engaged in a quick game of back tug of war with the lead.
Clay hit for six of her 11 first half points in the second quarter but saw the #3 Titans increase their lead on her squad as a three and a pair of free throws by Kaitlyn Kimmet started an 11-4 run that ended as the buzzer sounded with a corner triple from Emma Brinkman sailing through the net to give OG a 30-23 lead.
“Today was an excellent opportunity for us to see where we were in our season development, we started out rough by giving up 15 points and four three pointers in the first. In the second quarter we put up 20 points to take a 30-23 lead into the half but didn’t enter the second half with the urgency we had in the second quarter” said Ottawa Glandorf boss Troy Yant on his teams early performance.
Free throws from Jada Dames, a triple from Mary Ellis, and a trio of baskets from post Brooklyn Vaughn saw the Irish catch up to OG on the scoreboard with 1:05 remaining in the period at 34-34 and push ahead 37-34 before a Karsyn Erford jumper closed the gap to two heading into the final eight minutes of regulation.
Working through the fourth quarter as if it was a heavyweight prize fight the two teams continued to trade baskets and the lead with the Titans enjoying the biggest lead of the period at three on multiple occasions on makes by Kaufman, Lily Haselman, and Kaelyn Grothause on the fast break.
Trailing 46-43 with under half a minute to go the Irish turned to senior sharpshooter Mary Ellis at the top of the key and celebrated as she proceeded to knock down a deep triple to knot the score with just :26 remaining.
Ottawa Glandorf’s final possession of regulation ended with a layup that came up short while TCC’s last shot rolled around and away from the rim from the hands of Vaughn in the post to send the game to overtime tied 46-46.
Overtime saw baskets hard to come by for both squads through the early portion before a Ja’Lynn Hitt-Swartz triple and quartet of free throws helped to decide the final outcome, 56-51 Toledo Central Catholic.
“I’m disappointed to lose in overtime when I felt we played well enough to win but we added these kinds of games to the schedule to prepare us for March. The remarkable thing is that we relied on Karsyn Erford and Kaelyn Grothause, a freshman and a sophomore to lead us down the stretch. As they get better so will we. Hopefully we get to the point where everything is clicking and we play a complete game because this team will have a pretty high ceiling if we can just clean up some issues” opined Yant.
Toledo Central Catholic has now won 14 straight and will be back in action on Monday when they take on Fremont. Corniya Clay paced the Irish with a game high 15 points and was joined in double figures by Jada Dames (11), and Brooklyn Vaughn with 11.
Ottawa Glandorf (14-3) sees their 10-game win streak come to and end and will next be in action on Thursday evening as they put their unbeaten Western Buckeye League mark on the line against visiting Celina.
Scoring:
TCC (56):
Corniya Clay 15
Jada Dames 11
Ja’Nyah Johnson 3
Mary Ellis 7
Ja’Lynn Hitt-Swartz 9
Brooklyn Vaughn 11
FT: 9/11
3PT: 7 (Ellis 2, Dames 2, Clay, Hitt-Swartz, Johnson)
OG (51):
Karsyn Erford 7
Lily Haselman 4
Kaelyn Grothause 12
Emma Brinkman 3
Myka Aldrich 5
Carlie Brinkman 4
Kaitlyn Kimmet 4
Katie Kaufman 11
FT: 6/11
3PT: 3 (Kimmet, Erford, E. Brinkman)
By Quarter:
TCC 15-8-14-9-10
OG 10-20-6-10-5
JV: OG 49-33 (17-0 on season)