LIMA – Thursday night at “The Tub” the Bath Wildcats fired a historical shot at the rest of the Western Buckeye League as they defeated visiting Ottawa Glandorf and snapped the Titans 39 game conference winning streak with a 53-47 victory in a battle of state ranked teams.
During their five season run as top dog in the WBL, the Titans held a six-game winning streak over the Wildcats, a team who themselves had a 43 game winning streak snapped by OG that helped to jump start their own run during the 2015-16 season.
Entering play tonight the two teams both found themselves ranked in the initial AP Polls with Bath appearing at #5 in Division 2, and OG at #1 in Division 3.
Kelsey Erford put the Titans in front 2-0 just seconds into the contest as she raced to the basket with the opening tip for a score before Bath quickly countered with a pair of baskets by Ruby Bolon and a free throw by Chandler Clark to take a 5-4 lead.
Ottawa Glandorf’s last lead of the game came at 6-5 in the opening period on a basket by Erford that this time was countered by the Wildcats to the tune of an 8-0 run to close the stanza and punctuated by a pair of three point goals from senior Madelyn Renner, the last of which came just before the buzzer to give Bath a 13-6 lead.
Anna Seifker opened the scoring for the Titans in the second quarter with a three pointer to get her team within 13-9 but once again the Wildcat offense put together a mini run on baskets by Abbie Dackin and Clark to run the lead to 18-9 in the middle of the period.
Working against a morphing Bath defense and shadowed as they raced up and down the floor, Ottawa Glandorf kept the deficit within single digits as they chased the lead on baskets by Chloee Glenn, and Erin Kaufman in the post and Lily Haselman from beyond the arc to pull within 24-16 at the halftime stoppage.
In similar fashion to the torrent pace in which they started the game, OG chipped away at the Bath lead in the third quarter to get within five at 30-25 on a basket by Kaufman. Bath was held to eight points in the quarter as the Titans made their run to 32-28 at the buzzer after a pair of three pointers from Anna Siefker found their way to the bottom of the net.
Abbie Dackin gave the hosts a 35-28 cushion on the opening possession of the fourth quarter with a three point goal of her own and helped to keep the lead at seven in the middle of the stanza by setting up a Madelyn Renner basket at 3:38 for a 39-32 advantage.
Bath upped their lead on the scoreboard in the fourth quarter mainly from the free throw line where six players would connect on 12 of 17 tosses from the charity stripe led by Chandler Clark who cashed in on 3 of 5 to keep the Titans at bay.
Facing mounting foul trouble on senior Kelsey Erford and junior Erin Kaufman, Ottawa Glandorf was forced to turn to defense for offense subs and work the duo in only to score points. Kaufman nailed 6 of her 10 free throws in the final minutes to keep OG in the game while Erford hit on a pair of tosses to cut the lead to 48-44 with :52 remaining for her first points since the six to open the night just a minute after a fourth three by Siefker trimmed the Bath advantage to 44-38.
Bath (12-1, 4-0) was led in scoring by three players (Chandler Clark, Ruby Bolon, Madelyn Renner) all with 10 points on the evening. Next up for the Wildcats is a trip to the Celina Fieldhouse next Thursday for a WBL clash against the Bulldogs and a 10:45 A.M. date on January, 16th at the annual Classic In The Country event against Tri-Valley that is held by Berlin Hiland.
Ottawa Glandorf (11-1, 2-1) sees their 24-game regular season win streak snapped and suffers their first conference setback since February, 4th, 2016, a span of 1799 days and will look to regroup on Monday evening at 6:00 P.M. as they take on league foe Elida in a game that can be heard live on WZOQ Radio
The Titans were led by Erin Kaufman’s sixth double figure game of the year, a 14 point performance. Seniors Anna Siefker (12), and Kelsey Erford (10) joined Kaufman in double figures.
Box Score:
Bath (53):
Abbie Dackin 9
Lexi Renner 4
Rachel Clark 8
Chandler Clark 10
Ruby Bolon 10
Elena Oliver 4
Madelyn Renner 10
FG: 18/42
3PT: 3/16 (Renner 2, Dackin)
FT: 14/21
TO: 18
OG (47):
Kelsey Erford 10
Anna Siefker 12
Lily Haselman 3
Erin Kaufman 14
Chloee Glenn 8
FG: 16/44
3PT: 5/14 (Siefker 4, Haselman)
FT: 10/15
TO: 19
JV: OG 46-28
Radio Broadcast Link: OG vs Bath 1-7-21 WZOQ Radio