First Posted: 2/20/2015
OTTAWA – It all came down to math, to inches and feet, St. Marys coach Dan Hegemier said.
“What can you do when you’ve got 6-footers and they’ve got 6-7’s and 6-foot-8-ers?” Hegemier said after Ottawa-Glandorf came away with a 59-51 boys basketball win over the Roughriders on Friday night.
Actually, O-G only had one 6-foot, 7-inch player in Noah Bramlage. But with seven of his 12 points coming in the fourth quarter, including the hoop that put the Titans in front to stay, the memory of his role in the win was still fresh.
Bramlage and Brad Recker led the Titans (14-6, 6-2 Western Buckeye League) with 12 points each.
Recker helped Ottawa-Glandorf get off to a fast start by going 4-for-4 on 3-point shots in the first quarter.
The Titans led 34-28 early in the third quarter before St. Marys went on a 12-3 run to go up 40-37. The Roughriders’ last lead was at 45-44 early in the fourth quarter on a 3-pointer by Nathan Wilker.
Wilker led St. Marys (13-8, 4-4 WBL) with 12 points and Josh Young and Michael Hastreiter each had 10 points.
St. Marys was without its 6-foot, 5-inch post player Quinn Zaerr, who averages 10.6 points and a team-high 7.2 rebounds a game.
“He just hasn’t been feeling well the last couple weeks so I just decided he’s going to get healthy and that’s the way it’s going to be,” Hegemier said about Zaerr. “He went to the doctor and they think he might have a little mono.
“I’m proud of the way the kids played — Hastreiter and Jordon (Fisher) did a great job inside but we needed a 6-5 body. We gave them too many boards,” he said.
O-G coach Tyson McGlaughlin said the value of Bramlage’s fourth-quarter buckets were apparent to everyone. But he also said the player who threw the passes to set up a couple of those hoops played a key role.
“I thought the key to the game was, obviously Noah getting some buckets down low,” McGlaughlin said. “But Blake Blevins came in there and gave us a big spark. He was able to catch the ball in the high post and he had a couple of very nice looks to Noah. And that kind of opened the game up.”
The 6-foot, 3-inch senior also had a big offensive rebound for a score in the final quarter when he followed up a missed free throw to put the Titans in front 51-47 with six minutes to play.
