Lima Senior’s Brandon Moore looks to drive to the basket against Bowling Green’s Brock Hastings during a Tuesday Division I district semifinal at Lake High School. See more high school basketball photos at LimaScores.com.
Jose Nogueras | The Lima News
MILLBURY – Lima Senior survived in a scary 55-52 overtime win over Bowling Green in a Division I boys basketball district semifinal at Millbury Lake High School on Tuesday night because it had a rescue kit.
His name was Amari Addy.
Was the 5-11 freshman guard the whole story in the Spartans win? No.
Was he a big part of it? Definitely. He led the Spartans’ scoring with 17 points and had 9 rebounds on a night when they unexpectedly found themselves behind by nine points at halftime and still were down by two points with a minute to play in regulation.
Addy scored 13 of his points in the second half when he hit 6 of 7 shots. He and Lima Senior’s defense in the second half were two of the biggest contributors to the Spartans’ win.
“He has grown up quick,” Lima Senior coach Quincey Simpson said about Addy. “I’m not surprised at all because I’ve watched him since he’s been a third grader. I knew there was going to be a time he would put us on his back and he did that tonight.”
“We’ve got an offensive line up, a regular lineup and a defensive lineup. We weren’t hitting our shots so we had to intensify our defense and I thought we did that,” Simpson said. “We’ve got some guys who are really skilled offensively but they weren’t doing that tonight. They were ice cold.”
Lima Senior (17-7) moved on to a district championship matchup with Perrysburg at 7 p.m. Friday at Millbury Lake. Bowling Green finished 11-13.
Anthony Mosley had 12 points and 9 rebounds and Brandon Moore and Isaiah Wilson had 8 points. Ahmir Ruffin’s 13 points led Bowling Green.
Two free throws by Amarion Glenn put Lima Senior ahead to stay in the overtime.
The first half was simply shocking, at least for Lima Senior, when Bowling Green turned a one-point lead at the end of the first quarter into a 28-19 halftime lead.
The Bobcats’ confidence seemed to grow the longer the game went in the first two quarters.
They were the aggressors. It started with them launching 3-point shots the first five times they had the ball and that aggressiveness continued to grow.
Bowling Green connected on 5 of 14 3-pointers in the first half and hit 8 of 11 overall in the second quarter.
Lima Senior led 15-12 with 5:54 left in the first half after Wilson connected on a 3-pointer but in the rest of the second quarter the Spartans were outscored 16-4.
Bowling Green was 11 of 21 on field goals in the first half (52 percent) and Lima Senior hit only 7 of 23 (31 percent). The Bobcats had a 17-13 rebounding advantage and both teams had seven turnovers.
Four players hit a total of five 3-pointers for BG in the first half. The Bobcats were held to two 3-pointers in the last two quarters and overtime.
Reach Jim Naveau at 567-242-0414.
