By BRIAN SMITH
Sports Editor

On a night the Ottawa-Glandorf Titans dominated the offensive glass,  St. Marys  was the team that got the final and deciding offensive putback.

Erika Thornsberry pulled down a missed shot and put it back in as the clock ran out in the overtime period, giving  St. Marys a 51-49 win over the Titans at McBroom Gymnasium on Thursday night.

“We had a Plan A and a Plan B on that final possession,” St. Marys head coach Tim Niekamp said about getting the ball out of bounds with seven seconds left. “Both of them were covered. Rachel Wale found herself with a lane to the basket and she did what she was supposed to do and attack.”

Wale found teammate Carrie Schlater open on the left block. Schlater’s shot grazed over the rim, where Thornsberry grabbed it on the right block and put it back up. The ball went through the net just as the buzzer sounded, sending the Roughrider running out to celebrate and the Titans left to ponder a game that went awry so quickly.

O-G head coach Lori Smith said that the loss was a microcosm of her team’s season thus far after watching her team lose a game-long lead in regulation.

“Turnovers, turnovers, turnovers,” the O-G mentor said. “It’s been the same story all season. We’ve got to hang onto the ball. This hurts because we led the whole game and then two mistakes late in regulation lost us the ball game.”
Ottawa-Glandorf had three straight possessions without a field goal or free throw attempt with just under two minutes left and a lead.

Back-to-back baskets from Thornsberry and Schlater cut the lead to 46-42. A Schlater putback off a missed three-pointer made it a one possession game with two minutes left.

The Riders and Titans alternated trips to the foul line, with Wale and Thornsberry hitting three of four from the charity stripe.

Then the Titans were just a rattle away from a buzzer-beating win to end regulation when Dana Kaufman’s shot from the top of the key rattled in and out, leaving the two teams tied at 47-47 headed into overtime.

St. Marys played in its third overtime this season. Two of the first three games of the season against Fort Recovery and Elida went into extra time, as well. The win on Thursday bumps the Riders’ record to 2-1 in overtime games this season.

“Our team is now used to overtime,” Niekamp said. “It’s funny, because you go some entire years without playing overtime and then years like this you do it a bunch of times.”

Niekamp’s team got an early lead in the overtime on a Thornsberry basket with 3:40 left and was patient on the offensive end, running over a minute off the clock with the 49-47 lead.

After St. Marys missed the front end of a one-and-one, O-G’s Danielle Hershberger hit a six-foot runner in the lane that  tied the game up with 32 seconds left to go in the overtime, setting up Thornsberrys’ buzzer-beating putback.

The Titans fell to 3-11, 1-5 in the Western Buckeye League, a far-cry for a team that had lost just six games in WBL play over the last four years under Smith.

“I just feel like we gave this win away,” Smith said. “We made some open shots to get the lead and the girls played hard. But we’ve got to learn to hang onto the ball.”

There were only four lead changes during regulation, with O-G leading all but the few opening minutes and for one possession during the second quarter. O-G knocked down six 3-pointers to maintain that lead.

Niekamp said his team’s perimeter defense has been shaky at times this season. “Tera Wehri got hot for them on the outside and once again our defense made another team look really good behind the three-point line,” Niekamp said.

After starting the game a tepid 1-for-10 from behind the arc to begin the game, the Titans warmed up quickly. O-G hit three straight three-pointers midway through the third quarter, two of them by Wehri.

“In a low scoring game like this, nine points is huge,” said Niekamp, who called a timeout to try to stem the tide and shore up his squad’s defense.

It worked as the Titans watched as a 46-38 lead with 5:27 left in regulation slowly but steadily melted away.

O-G had a field day on the offensive glass most of the night, grabbing nine offensive boards and turning those extra chances into points. Ironically, it was the Riders who got the offensive putback to win the game.

“I have no idea how we let up that many boards,” Niekamp said of a game filled with held ball situations and offensive putbacks. “We’re a good rebounding team and they just kept getting them. That was one downside of this game.

But the turnovers and St. Marys’ ability to get in the paint  eventually wore down the Titans. Thornsberry finished the night with a game-high 21 points, her third straight game with more than 18 points. Sixteen of those points came in the first half.

“Thornsberry is a great player for them,” Smith said. “We tried different defenders and we tried double-teaming her and none of it seemed to work.”

When O-G went to a box and one defense to shut down Thornsberry, the Riders were able to get other teammates into the scoring in the second half. Rachel Wale scored 12 points, Katie Burke had 10 points, and Schlater added eight points for the Riders.

“They went box and one for about six possessions there to try to shut down Erika,” Niekamp said. “She did a nice job passing out of the pressure and we have some plays that allow our other scorers to be freed up.”

Burke knocked down a pair of treys and scored 10 second-half points.

Jenna Ellerbrock led the Titans with 18 points. Hershberger added 10 points.

St. Marys’ up and down season continues. After a three-game losing streak that ended on Monday night against Piqua, the Riders are again a game within .500 on the season and are 2-4 in the WBL with their second straight win.

The Roughriders’ early 9-4 lead evaporated with the Titans’ 7-0 burst to end the first quarter to grab a 13-9 advantage.

The Titans’ lead got to as big as 17-10 midway through the second quarter, but eight points from Thornsberry in the period got the Riders to within 23-21 at the half. That included back-to-back three-point plays for the St. Marys sophomore.

St. Marys will play at Defiance on Monday, Feb. 2 at 6 p.m., a rescheduled game from Jan. 15.

ST. MARYS         51
OTTAWA-GLANDORF    49

OG    13   10   15   9   2   -  49
SM    10   11    14  12  4  -  51

O-G
Ellerbrock 18, Kaufman 6, Hershberger 10, Wehri 8, Hempfiling 3, Zynda 5, Kaufman 7.

ST. MARYS
Burke 10, Wale 12, Schlater 8, Thornsberry 21.