OTTOVILLE – A big game for Bridget Landin and a big win for Ottoville is a combination that has been seen often the last four years.
The latest chance to see the two go together came when Ottoville beat Ottawa-Glandorf 54-48 in a match-up of undefeated girls basketball teams on Thursday night at L.W. Heckman Gymnasium.
Kasey Knippen scored 13 points and Landin had 10 points and 10 rebounds for Ottoville (6-0). Kadie Hempfling’s 16 points led Ottawa-Glandorf (6-1).
Landin also crossed the 1,000-point mark in her career in the fourth quarter after Ottoville outscored O-G 23-7 in the third quarter to turn the game in a different direction after the Titans had built a 26-18 halftime lead.
Abi Hilvers’ 3-pointer at the buzzer at the end of the third quarter put Ottoville up 41-33 and the Titans never got closer than four points the rest of the way. O-G had seven turnovers in the third quarter and was just 3 of 10 on field goals.
“We changed our defense to a half-court defense in the second half to keep them in front of us. They didn’t get easy looks,” Ottoville coach Dave Kleman said. “We were making the 3-pointers in the second half and they were struggling a little bit.”
Landin said, “We just showed more pressure on defense and took our time more on offense.”
She said she knew the 1,000-point line was out there somewhere coming into her senior season but didn’t think about it much.
“I haven’t really thought about it until this season. I didn’t want to know until I was like 10 points away. I didn’t want to worry about it too much,” she said.
It wasn’t until Wednesday that she knew the milestone was in range.
“I asked her if she wanted to know when she got close and she said, ‘Yeah,’ and I said ‘You’re close,’ “ Kleman said.
All 10 of Landin’s points came in the second half. It was probably no coincidence that Ottoville’s fortunes changed with her success at putting the ball in the basket, though Kleman pointed out that her game includes a lot more than scoring.
“She does so many other things. She didn’t score in the first half but how many rebounds, how many steals, how many tipped balls and assists did she have? She does the other part of the game and we have enough other players who can score there isn’t pressure on her to score 20 every night,” he said.
Ottawa-Glandorf coach Troy Yant said the Titans looked complacent in the second half.
“Obviously, it was the third quarter but it wasn’t like it was any one thing,” he said. “We came out of the locker room and we were very complacent. Our passes weren’t crisp, our cuts weren’t crisp. We had a lot of deflections and a lot of turnovers. We weren’t focused and it gave them the window they needed to take advantage of it.”
Ottoville started fast and led 12-6 after Amber Miller hit a 3-pointer with 3:40 left in the first quarter and led throughout the first quarter.
O-G didn’t take its first lead until Hempfling’s 3-pointer with 7:35 left in the first half. The Titans continued to connect on threes after that, hitting four of them in the second quarter, and took a 26-18 lead at halftime. O-G’s second-quarter threes came from four different players – Carrie Johnson, Kasey Ellerbrock, Brianna Schimmoeller and Hempfling.
Ottoville managed only one field goal in the second quarter and was 1 of 7 on field goals in that quarter. In the next 8 minutes, 21 seconds after Miller’s 3-pointer it scored only two baskets, both of them by Knippen as O-G took a 26-18 lead.
Ottawa-Glandorf still led 31-26 halfway through the third quarter but Ottoville ended the quarter with a 15-2 run to go up by eight. Its biggest lead was 10 points, 51-41, when Knippen hit a 3-pointer with 1:58 left in the game.
.neFileBlock {
margin-bottom: 20px;
}
.neFileBlock p {
margin: 0px 0px 0px 0px;
}
.neFileBlock .neFile {
border-bottom: 1px dotted #aaa;
padding-bottom: 5px;
padding-top: 10px;
}
.neFileBlock .neCaption {
font-size: 85%;
}
