First Posted: 3/28/2015
COLUMBUS — Lima Central Catholic needed every one of its weapons in the state championship game.
But, as it turned out, the T-Birds weren’t close to full strength.
LCC played with an injured Tre Cobbs and an injured Jake Williams in the 63-50 loss to Cleveland Villa Angela-St. Joseph in the Division III boys basketball state championship game Saturday at Ohio State’s Value City Arena.
Cobbs, who played with a dislocated left shoulder he suffered in Thursday’s state semifinals, suffered a sprained ankle in the third quarter.
Williams dislocated his right shoulder for the third time in the second quarter.
Williams and Cobbs headed back to the trainer’s room, but both returned to the game and battled it out until the end.
Williams, who had 14 points and 12 rebounds in the state semifinals, finished with four points and six rebounds in the finals. Cobbs had five points and five assists.
The senior Williams had surgery on his right shoulder his freshman year.
This season he suffered the same dislocated right shoulder against Van Wert in the seventh game of the year. He dislocated the shoulder again in the 18th game against Kalamazoo Central.
“We’re never going to give up,” LCC coach Frank Kill said. “We had that never give up mentality. I had two players blow their shoulders out in the last 48 hours and both of them came back. That says a lot about those guys because they want what’s best for this team and Lima Central Catholic.”
VASJ was leading 22-19 with 4:33 left in the second quarter when Williams immediately walked off the floor right under the basket.
“It was a loose ball and (VASJ’s Brian) Parker kind of had a hold on it and I tried to reach in and get a piece of it. I guess he hit it (the shoulder) just right and it popped right out,” Williams said. “I knew right away. It was the third time this year and the sixth time the last couple of years.”
Williams and the trainer immediately headed to the back hallway.
“We went to the trainer’s room and they popped it back in,” Williams said. “Then I did a couple of stretches. I was in the locker room with my team at halftime and I was ready to go.”
After dislocating the shoulder against Van Wert, Williams took a week off. He didn’t have that luxury Saturday.
Being that it was the end of Williams’ high school athletic career, he knew he wanted to finish the game.
“I told them I was good,” Williams said. “There were 16 minutes left. I had nothing to lose. … I did a couple of exercises with the doctor and he said I was good to go if I wanted to, and obviously I wanted to. Why would I want to watch my last game on the bench?
“That (not playing) was not an option. It wasn’t a matter of if, it was a matter of when I was getting back in there.”
The junior Cobbs dislocated his left shoulder for the third time in the state semifinals. He had first dislocated it against Celina, the second last regular-season game. He then re-injured the shoulder in the district semifinal win over Coldwater.
Cobbs warmed up prior to the game and was in the starting lineup.
“I was going to give it a shot, no matter what,” Cobbs said. “When I hurt it against Coldwater, it was a Thursday-Saturday swing, so I knew I could go again (like he did coming back against St. Henry in the district finals). I wanted to go. He’s (God) the reason for this right now. I wasn’t supposed to be playing today.
“In warmups it felt pretty good. … But I got in the game and there was a little pain here and there, but you can’t blame that.”
There were times when Kill admitted it looked like Cobbs’ arm was dragging.
If that wasn’t enough, Cobbs hit the floor with an ankle injury with 2:33 left in the third quarter. LCC was trailing at the time, 38-28.
After a quick trip to the back hall, Cobbs returned with 30 seconds left in the third quarter.
“I came down awkwardly on it,” Cobbs said. “It was sort of a little twist, nothing major. I had to get back in and help my guys out.”
Cobbs said there was no tape job involved in the back.
“They just had me do some running,” he said. “I said, ‘Get me back in there.’ I definitely was not going to watch the last two quarters.”
No surgery is planned for Williams. He won’t play baseball this spring and he doesn’t plan to play any sports at Central Florida, where he’s headed to college in Orlando.
“When Jake got hurt, we all knew we had to be the next man up,” LCC point guard Josh Dixon said. “We had to do whatever to help the team out, getting rebounds, playing defense and stopping their big guys down low.”
In the end, it wasn’t enough to contend with 6-foot-8 Derek Pardon, who is headed to Northwestern. Pardon finished with 15 points, 12 rebounds and nine blocks. Carlton Bragg, the 6-8 center who is going to Kansas, had 12 points and three rebounds.
