SPENCERVILLE – It took less than a minute of Columbus Grove’s 72-41 girls basketball win over Spencerville on Thursday night to see several of the reasons Grove has been so successful this season.
Seven seconds into the game, guard Jade Clement hit a 3-pointer. Fifteen seconds into the game its press forced a turnover. Nineteen seconds into the game one of its two post players scored.
Things might have slowed down a little after that, but the course of the game was already set.
Columbus Grove (17-1, 6-0 Northwest Conference) doubled the score on the Bearcats by halftime, 38-19, led by 20 after three quarters and won by 31.
Clement led the scoring with 18 points. Paige Bellman, a 5-foot, 11-inch sophomore, had 14 points and 10 rebounds. Lynea Diller, a 6-foot, 1-inch senior, had 11 points and Macy McCluer also scored 11, including three 3-pointers.
Spencerville (7-11, 3-3 NWC) got 14 points from Jenna Henline, including three 3-pointers.
“We started off strong in the first minute. We have shooters on the outside, we have a post presence and we try to press and get it to be an up-tempo game,” Columbus Grove coach Brian Schroeder said about the fast start.
“After that point we didn’t play real clean at times. We got into some foul trouble. We didn’t play as clean as we can but we were able to get the NWC win,” he said.
Columbus Grove has already clinched at least a share of the Putnam County League championship and with another NWC victory will do the same thing in that league.
“We knew we had the potential to be really good,” Schroeder said. “We’ve surpassed my expectations for this year. Obviously, we still have goals ahead of us. The girls have really worked hard and it’s really nice to see us playing as well as we have been.”
Columbus Grove dominated the statistics as much as it did on the scoreboard. It shot 49 percent on field goals (27 of 55) and limited Spencerville to 30 percent (15 of 50). It had a 32-19 rebounding edge. The turnover numbers were almost even, with 19 for Spencerville and 18 for Columbus Grove.
This came with a new starting lineup for Grove after starting guard Brooke Hoffman missed the first three days of school this week because of illness.
“They’re an excellent team. They are extremely deep. They shoot the ball really, really well. They have two great post players and really understand how to play basketball,” Spencerville coach Greg Ekis said.
“Our goal tonight was to try to slow some of them down and make some shots when we were open. But when you’re playing against an excellent team there’s only so much you can do,” he said.
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