By: Nate Calvin
ADA – Despite stretches of cold shooting during the first three quarters, No. 7 seed Wauseon found themselves trailing No. 2 St. Marys by just three points with 1:20 left in the game.
The Roughriders responded with a 9-0 run to seal the game and a berth in the district finals after a 48-38 win.
Kyle Steininger canned two early 3-pointers to give St. Marys a quick 6-0 lead before a Jace Turner bucket pushed the lead to 8-0.
Wauseon’s defense was able to keep the game close as after the hot start by St. Marys, the Roughriders wouldn’t score again in the quarter with Wauseon finally getting on the board at the 1:00 mark on a Carson Burt field goal.
The Indians finished 1/9 in the first quarter while St. Marys was just 3/13 to keep Wauseon within six at 8-2.
After increasing their lead to 12-6, St. Marys engineered a 7-0 spurt as Gavin Reineke hit a trey, Turner added a field goal, and 6’10” center and Ohio State commit Austin Parks hit two free throws to make it a 19-6 game.
Wauseon would then battle back with a 7-0 run of their own starting with a triple by Burt and two layups by Jonas Tester to cut the lead to 19-13 with 1:30 left in the half.
Reineke ended the first half with a basket and then a 3-pointer to open the third quarter and give the Roughriders a 24-13 advantage.
Wauseon would crank up the defense which resulted in a 10-1 surge during which Tester had a bucket, a triple after a Wauseon offensive rebound, and then another field goal to make it 25-23 at the 1:40 mark of the quarter.
St. Marys again scored the last points of the quarter with an Evan Angstmann field goal and then Angstman started the fourth quarter scoring with a triple to up the Roughriders lead to 30-23.
The St. Marys lead would balloon to 39-28 before the Indians would make one more run.
The 8-0 spurt was spearheaded by a trey from Tester, a conventional three-point play from Tester, and Landon Hines scored inside to close the deficit to 39-36 with 1:20 left in the game.
With Wauseon trapping on defense, Angstmann would get behind the Indians’ pressure for a layup and he was fouled and after converting the foul shot for a three-point play it was 42-36.
The Roughriders would wrap the game up with the help of field goals by Turner and Parks before one more bucket from Tester ended the scoring.
Tester topped Wauseon (14-10) with a game-high 20 points (16 in the second half) as the Indians finished 14/36 (38%) from the floor and 7/9 (77%) at the charity stripe.
St. Marys (16-7) connected on 16/35 (45%) shots with six 3-pointers and went 10/12 (83%) at the foul line.
Reineke and Angstmann paced the Roughriders with 10 points each and Parks was held to seven points, ten below is season average of 17.0 ppg, as be battled foul trouble throughout the game.
WAUSEON 2 11 10 15 – 38
ST. MARYS 8 13 6 21 – 48
Nate can be reached at sports@thevillagereporter.com
