OTTAWA – Ottawa-Glandorf found its missing energy, but Elida never located its missing shooting touch.
That was the short version of the Titans’ 57-38 boys basketball win over the Bulldogs on Friday night.
O-G (16-5, 7-1 Western Buckeye League) was behind at the end of the first quarter after a sluggish start but dominated the final 24 minutes.
Elida (6-14, 5-3 WBL) shot 33 percent in the game (16 of 48) and if you subtract Baylen Stinson’s 8 for 16 shot chart, the rest of the Bulldogs were 8 of 32 on field goals.
With Stinson, who finished with 16 points, scoring 10 points in the first quarter, Elida was up 12-9 eight minutes into the game. But it didn’t last.
“You can’t shoot the ball like that. We’re not going to beat anybody shooting the ball like that,” Elida coach Denny Thompson said.
“There’s not a whole lot to say other than that. They’re a good team and if we’re going to shoot 33 percent from the field, I’m pretty sure that’s going to be a loss,” he said.
Kordell Stover (16 points, 7 rebounds), Nick Weirauch (12 points) and Jordan Verhoff (10 points) led the scoring for Ottawa-Glandorf.
Jay Kaufman scored nine points and pulled down 17 rebounds for the Titans, despite missing several minutes of the first quarter when he went to the locker room to have a sprained ankle taped.
“It was one of those games where we didn’t come out with the right type of energy,” Ottawa-Glandorf coach Tyson McGlaughlin said.
“They killed us on the glass early, which is something we usually do well. For whatever reason, we were watching the ball and Elida was going after it.”
The watching and the Titans’ slow start both disappeared after the first quarter and when Kaufman, a 6-foot, 4-inch sophomore, returned.
“Jay Kaufman came out there and asserted himself,” McGlaughlin said. “He went out early and that was a big blow to us because Jay is a very important piece of the puzzle for us.
“He just rolled his ankle and they went in there and taped it up for him. He’s all right. He’s getting better every day,” he said.
O-G shot 50 percent in the final three quarters after connecting on only 3 of 16 shots in the first quarter.
It went up 25-15 at halftime, with the help of nine Elida turnovers in the second quarter. It was 44-25 after three quarters and the lead grew to as many as 22 points in the fourth quarter.
McGlaughlin said it was probably a combination of O-G’s defense and just cold shooting by Elida that caused the Bulldogs’ struggles on offense.
“I think it was a little bit of both. We gave up some lanes to the basket but that was part of our scouting report. We wanted to force them to drive it on us instead of catch and shoot. They missed some shots they normally make. Overall, after that first quarter I thought we did a pretty good job of clamping down,” he said.
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