First Posted: 3/21/2015

BOWLING GREEN — There were some changes in the cast, but the destination will be the same.

Lima Central Catholic’s 54-42 win over Columbus Hartley in the Division III boys basketball regional championship game on Saturday night sent the Thunderbirds back to Columbus to try to repeat the state title they won a year ago.

LCC (25-2) will play Dayton Chaminade-Julienne at 8:30 p.m. Thursday in a Division III state semifinal.

The Thunderbirds got back to the state tournament with three returning starters from last season — senior Jake Williams and juniors Dantez Walton and Tre Cobbs.

So, there was a good foundation to build on. But there were no guarantees.

Those starters came up big again on Saturday. But for a key stretch in the regional championship game, only one of those three was on the floor and LCC had to find some different answers against a Hartley team that probably was better than its 15-11 record.

By its own admission, LCC was not at its best early when it was tied 23-23 at halftime and Hartley hit the first bucket of the second half to go up 25-23.

“It’s a good thing there are four quarters because the first two quarters we played as flat as we have all season long,” LCC coach Frank Kill said. “I thought in the third quarter we came out with a lot more energy when we went to a diamond press and it woke our guys up a little bit.”

That wake-up call was interrupted, though, when Walton went to the bench with his third foul three minutes into the quarter and Williams had to sit down after drawing his fourth foul with 3:13 left in the quarter.

After last Wednesday’s semifinal win over Ottawa-Glandorf, Kill talked about the contributions LCC’s non-starters had made. Saturday night, they made good in their roles under pressure again.

Hartley got the lead down to two points, 30-28, with three minutes left in the third quarter. But, with Cobbs hitting a pair of 3-pointers and Cam White coming off the bench for a score, LCC stretched its lead to 38-30 after three quarters.

“I think that speaks volumes about our team,” Williams said. “We’ve got a lot of experience with nine guys coming back from our state championship run and we’ve got a lot of young guys who stepped up. Even if you might not get the minutes, you have to have the next man up mentality and step up.”

Cobbs said, “Dantez and Jake got in foul trouble but this team is special. We had guys who stepped up. That’s what is so special about this team. One person goes down and another person comes up.”

Cobbs led LCC with 18 points and five assists. The Thunderbirds’ other starting guard, Josh Dixon had 14 points — eight of them in fourth quarter — along with four assists and three steals.

“I felt a responsibility to help the team defensively and offensively when guys weren’t hitting some shots,” Dixon said.

Dixon also was involved in the weirdest play of the night when he attempted to throw a lob pass to Walton, it was deflected high into the air by a Hartley defender and it bounced off the backboard and through the basket for two points.

Hartley had cut LCC’s lead to two points, 38-36, on back-to-back 3-pointers by Jake Fisher just before Dixon’s score with 5 ½ minutes left in the game. LCC’s lead never fell below four points the rest of the way.

Hartley coach Randy Kortokrax said, “I thought we played hard, I don’t think we played well at times. I thought we guarded them pretty well. I told the team to make them earn it and I think we did make them earn it.

“We missed a lot of free throws (Hartley was 5 of 16). And that was just a tough break when you’re down two and you get a deflection and it flies into the air and goes in,” he said.

LCC’s state semifinal game will be a rematch of a regular-season game. The Thunderbirds beat the Eagles 64-54 on Feb. 10 at LCC. Chaminade-Julienne (22-6) beat Cincinnati Shroder 58-53 in the Kettering regional championship game Saturday.