Ottawa-Glandorf’s Caden Erford drives against St. Marys’ Brayden Sullivan during Friday night’s game at Ottawa-Glandorf.
Dean Brown | The Lima News
OTTAWA – Ottawa-Glandorf had a very good night. Colin White had a great night.
The junior standout scored an O-G boys basketball school record 44 points when the Titans rolled to a 78-44 win over St. Marys on Friday night.
White had 30 of his points by halftime. He came into the game having hit only 7 of 27 three-point shots this season but made five of them in the first 9 minutes, 11 seconds of the contest and finished with six buckets from long range.
The record-setter, which broke the record of 42 points shared by Tyson Kerner and Ryan Maag, came on a dunk.
“It’s been a long time coming but it’s really just a credit to my teammates, who told me to keep shooting and it went down tonight,” White said. “The first one wasn’t very good. I hit it off the side of the backboard. Then the next couple went in and I was, ‘All right, it’s going to be that type of night.’ It was fun.”
White has been in the spotlight not just in northwest Ohio but across the state since last season when O-G was Division III state runner-up and he had two strong games on the big stage of the state tournament.
“There’s always pressure and the state tournament run obviously amped it up a little bit. But we’re not shy with pressure here. We embrace the bull’s eye, as coach says, and we really get after it,” he said.
White said he knew what the O-G scoring record was. “Coach said, ‘You’re going to break it and you get one more shot.’ And then the last one was a dunk, so I was pretty happy with that.”
O-G coach Tyson McGlaughlin said, “We can’t rely on Colin to do everything. But when he has nights like tonight it’s a little bit easier to give him the ball. It’s a special night.
“You want your superstars to play their best in the big games and we knew we needed a big game from him tonight. He was able to make some shots early that got him going. But our supporting cast was really good and they were really good in a variety of ways.”
The Titans were in control of the game by halftime when they led 40-14.
O-G shot 15 of 27 as a team in the first two quarters. St. Marys was only 7 of 12. The Roughriders had 16 turnovers by halftime, which was probably the biggest reason for their inability to get off more than a handful of shots.
St. Marys finished the game with 24 turnovers. “I think the turnovers early on got them out of their comfort zone and when we were able to get them out of the comfort zone we were able to turn those into points,” McGlaughlin said.
Austin Parks, the Roughriders’ 6-10 center who signed with Ohio State in November, scored 19 points and had 7 rebounds.
Theo Maag had 9 points and Caden Erford scored 8 points for O-G (8-2, 3-0 Western Buckeye League. St. Marys is 4-5 overall and 1-2 in the WBL. O-G’s eight wins have been by 30 points, 31 points, 28 points, 41 points, 36 points, 34 points, 27 points and 34 points.
Reach Jim Naveau at 567-242-0414.
