First Posted: 3/13/2015
WAPAKONETA — Spencerville’s young team put top-seeded Marion Local’s back to the ropes Friday.
The Bearcats just couldn’t quite finish the Flyers off.
Marion Local put it all together in the fourth quarter, outscoring the Bearcats 22-4 to knock off Spencerville 65-52 in their Division IV district championship at Wapakoneta. The Flyers (20-4) will take on Jackson Center at 8 p.m. Tuesday in the regional semifinals at Kettering Fairmont.
Spencerville finished its season (16-6).
“It was a great game, our kids played extremely hard,” Spencerville coach Kevin Sensabaugh said. “Our kids battled to the end and it’s a great season. It just burns a little bit.”
For three quarters, the Bearcats’ quick, sharp-shooting guards executed a nearly perfect game plan against the much bigger Flyers. Spencerville’s crew of Zach Goecke, Dakota Prichard, Mason Nourse and Damien Corso did an excellent job of slashing to the hole for layups or kicking out for 3-pointers.
On the other end, Spencerville’s scrappy defense forced turnovers — 10 in the first half — and muffled the massive post advantage in Marion Local’s Luke Knapke (6-foot-10) and Ryan Bruns (6-7).
Spencerville turned a 31-30 halftime deficit into a 48-43 lead after three quarters, outscoring Marion Local 18-12 in the third.
“We executed our game plan pretty well,” Sensabaugh said. “We wanted to spread them out and make their big guys work on ball screens.”
Marion Local coach Kurt Goettemoeller said his team hadn’t seen much of the high-ball screen Spencerville ran.
“They didn’t let us breathe because they’re really good and they had a great game plan,” he said. “For the better part of three quarters, they had us stymied.”
But with Marion Local’s post duo not dominating, the Flyers’ senior guard duo of Dustin Rethman and Dustin Seitz picked up the slack in a major way. Rethman scored 17 points and Seitz scored 15 points – both knocked in three 3-pointers.
“We are a balanced team,” Goettemoeller said. “If you look at our points per game average, we have three-to-four guys at or near double-figures, those guys don’t get enough credit.”
Seitz started the fourth with a 3-pointer to cut the lead to 48-46 and the tide turned in a big way. Spencerville – which made 19-of-40 field goals in the first three quarters – made just 2-of-9 shots in the fourth while Marion Local began to score from everywhere.
Bruns scored nine of his 17 points and the Flyers used a 12-2 run to the start the quarter for a 55-50 lead with 3:54 remaining. From there, Marion Local never looked back as Knapke finished with 14 points.
“Seitz and Rethman lit it up,” Sensabaugh said. “It’s tough to guard the big guys when the guards can pull up. We were stuck between guarding the bigs and guarding the guards.
“(Offensively) they started extending the floor and getting out on our shooters. And then when we went in the paint, there’s a 7-footer basically waiting on you.”
Goecke finished with a team-high 16 points for Spencerville while Prichard had 13 points as Spencerville made 21-of-49 shots for the game, hitting 8-of-17 from 3-point land. The Bearcats had just eight turnovers to Marion Local’s 14.
“I’m proud of our kids,” Sensabaugh said. “They played as hard as they could, they did that for the most part all season and that’s all you can ask. We’re a young group, we’ve got everyone back for next year and we’re hoping this is a good experience.”
