First Posted: 2/13/2015
ELIDA — Ottawa-Glandorf came at Elida with plenty of pressure and a physical attitude.
It proved way too much for the Bulldogs.
O-G ran away with a 66-42 boys basketball victory over Elida on Friday at the Elida Fieldhouse.
The Titans went with numerous full-court presses and forced Elida into 21 turnovers, including 12 in the first half. That helped O-G outscore Elida 15-2 in the second quarter to take a 30-18 halftime lead.
Elida never recovered.
Zach Kuhlman led the Titans with 14 points. Nick Weihrauch had 12 points, on four 3-pointers, all in the first quarter. Princeton-bound center Noah Bramlage had 10 points, 12 rebounds and five blocks.
“He’s (Weihrauch) been playing JV (junior varsity) most of the year,” O-G coach Tyson McGlaughlin said. “There’s one thing he can do, he can flat out shoot the ball. He had five (threes) the last game and he had four tonight. He’s getting more comfortable with his role and he came in and gave us a big lift.”
O-G is 12-6, 5-2 in the Western Buckeye League. Elida is 7-9, 4-3 in the WBL.
“Manhandled comes to mind,” Elida coach Denny Thompson said. “We got down 12 and we tried to come out with energy in the third quarter, but they physically dominated us. They really took our dribble penetration away, things that we’ve been good at it. … And, honestly, they were pretty good tonight.”
When the O-G press wasn’t rushing Elida, the Titans pushed the Elida shooters well out past the 3-point arc and out their comfort zone.
Elida’s Austin Allemeier finished with nine points, while Josh Press scored 12.
“We kind of changed our defense and went a lot more full court,” McGlaughlin said. “We were a little more aggressive in the trapping areas and tried to use our bench. Turnovers, obviously, led to some points for us. We started pressing a lot last weekend and we’ve played really well and really hard. I think when our guys are playing full court, they’re more into it.”
As for Allemeier, who scored 30 against Kenton last week, McGlaughlin said, “We wanted to push him out a little further and we wanted to make sure whoever was in our defensive rotation, they didn’t leave him. And the further we could push him away from the basket, the better.”
O-G outscored Elida 12-2 to start the third quarter to give the Titans a 42-20 lead and it was never tight again.
Elida won the boards, 37-35, with Press getting seven rebounds. The Titans shot 38 percent from the field, while Elida hit only 35 percent. Elida also struggled at the foul line, hitting just 6 of 15, while the Titans hit 16 of 23.
“We’ve been inconsistent this year,” McGlaughlin said. “We’ve played some really good basketball this year and we’ve played some really bad basketball this year. We needed to come out and prove on a big stage against a league opponent and we’ve done that two weeks in a row now.”
