OTTAWA – Sophomore post Katie Kaufman dropped a career high 15 points on Thursday night as Ottawa Glandorf remained among the unbeatens in the Western Buckeye League with a 50-40 victory over visiting St. Marys at the Supreme Court.
Trailing 4-2 on baskets by Riders Kendall Dieringer and Cora Rable the 6’0 Titan tossed in a pair of baskets to tie and give her squad a 6-4 lead midway through the first stanza.
St. Marys kept within striking distance of OG throughout the opening eight minutes and pulled within a point on two occasions thanks to three point field goals from Dieringer who notched eight of the Roughriders initial 10 markers.
Leading at the start of the second thanks to a Kaelyn Grothouse triple the Titans upped their lead to 13-10 with 6:33 remaining before the halftime buzzer when Grothouse again dented the scoring column.
Despite being held scoreless and without a basket for a nearly three and a half minute span the Roughriders were able to keep themselves within a possession or two on the scoreboard thanks to a triple by Noelle Ruane and a layup from Karsyn McGlothen. Ottawa Glandorf splashed a quick run just before halftime from junior Maggie Verhoff punctuated by a three pointer as time expired to run the lead to 25-17 at the break.
Outscoring their hosts 15-12 in the third quarter on makes by Ruane, Morgan Hesse, Cora Rable, McGlothen, and Dieringer the Roughriders closed the deficit to 37-32 heading into the fourth period as they cut down on the turnovers and foul trouble that had plagued their success in the first half of play.
Erin and Katie Kaufman combined to lead the Ottawa Glandorf offense in the third quarter but were shut down in the early half of the last eight minutes before finding themselves able to contribute in the rebounding and passing game to set up their fellow teammates for scores.
Myka Aldrich, a sophomore averaging nearly seven points per game this season finished off the last of her three back door open layup makes behind the Roughrider defense on a bounce pass from Erin Kaufman and upped the lead to 42-36 just one possession after a triple from Maggie Verhoff with 7:34 to go.
Katie Kaufman’s two free throw makes in the third quarter put a stop to an 0/8 run over an eight quarter span dating back to the Titans game in Sandusky against Crestview without a make from the charity stripe and represented the start of a personal run as she knocked down three of four tosses in the final five minutes for the last of her game high 15.
Cora Rable hit all four of her tosses from the line in the fourth and put a stop to another long series of time without a basket for the Roughriders who were held to just two makes from the field in the same span of game action.
“Kudos to OG for a hard fought game, they disrupted our offense and slowed us down in transition. I thought we came out of halftime with good energy and I’m proud of the leadership on our team for trying to keep everybody together” spoke St. Marys fifth year coach Jon Burke on his teams performance.
St. Marys (9-2, 3-1) sees their eight game winning streak draw to a close and will head to Marysville for a Saturday afternoon non-league contest this weekend. Kendall Dieringer paced the blue and gold attack with 14 points.
Sixth ranked Ottawa Glandorf (8-2, 4-0) keeps pace with Shawnee at the top of the league standings and will play host to #1 Fort Loramie on Saturday afternoon at the Supreme Court as part of the annual Lady Titans Youth Basketball celebration starting before the JV game at 11:00 A.M.
Ottawa Glandorf boss Troy Yant remained unbeaten against the Roughriders with the win and remarked “Katie Kaufman played a big game for us. Defensively we were pretty good especially after we fine tuned a few things at halftime. Myka (Aldrich) did a good job on Ruane, and I thought Maggie (Verhoff) did a good job on Dieringer while Chloe (Schroder) hit a big three for us as did Maggie to give us some distance going into the half where we did just enough to hold on”.
Looking at his team through the season long lens Yant opined “We’ve still got growing pains trying to find out which players can handle pressure situations. Still too many unforced turnovers and mental mistakes at critical points in the game, but we survived and are still undefeated in the WBL”.
Scoring:
OG (50):
Maggie Verhoff 10
Chloe Schroeder 3
Kaelyn Grothouse 8
Emma Brinkman 2
Myka Aldrich 6
Erin Kaufman 6
Katie Kaufman 15
FT: 6/12
3PT: 4 (Verhoff 2, Schroeder, Grothouse)
TO: 16
St. Marys (40):
Morgan Hesse 4
Kendall Dieringer 14
Noelle Ruane 8
Cora Rable 8
Karsyn McGlothen 6
FT: 6/9
3PT: 4 (Ruane 2, Dieringer 2)
TO: 21
JV: Ottawa Glandorf 38-29 (Kaitlyn Kimmet 16 points)